[X] My Assistant

No, most whining isn't valid. Like the time when mages whined over the loss of EDB bug. Or when agitation came in and raped almost every mage in existence many times over. Or when 100% accuracy was removed so that agitation became more dangerous. None of that was valid whining.

I said reason for whining, which is not automatically the same thing as a valid reason.
The very least you can do, is to look at that reason, and then see if it is valid or not.
But in order for someone to look at it, there has to be whining.

And if there is a lot of whining from a lot of people, that means a lot of people thinks this should be looked at.
It does not mean that whiners are worthless for whining and therefore everything they whine about is irrelevant.

Considering how most players play here, Mage was the style most suited for them to begin with. I think the greater concern was people wanting the Mage style incorporated into melee. The bolded is probably the MAIN reason for everyone being all disgruntled about the melee change. *Most* of the melee comments I see involve some ungodly boost to Melee that will break HV. I've seen a few intelligent ones and I've been supporting them but the majority I've had to treat as trolling.

That's your choice how you want to treat them.

What people want is some type of balance between mages and melees. Yes, it is single-player, but most people are still obsessed with this thing called justice and balance.
And thank god for that, for if that wasn't the case, society in general would be pretty shitty.

You're the first melee I've seen say this. Whenever I talk to any other melee they say "lol yah they're all stunned". Guess you're not macing it? What's the difference between your strat and the rest of the melees out there? =\

Yeah, I use a mace, and yeah, they are stunned.
But they are not stunned all the time, perma-stun was removed.
And monsters still regen mana and spirit when stunned, which means that when they do come out of stun, they tend to have full mana and spirit.
So yeah, monsters don't hit mace melees all that much, but in longer rounds (bosses or higher difficulties) a lot of those hits are special attacks.
Which means spirit shield and high cost in spirit for longer arenas, if there are lots of bosses or at a high difficulty.

As for soaking up lots of huge hits to the spirit...
No one will take many big hits in low difficulty (mage+melee) - if they are, they are doing something wrong.
At high difficulties the monsters are all stunned. Those not stunned have to break through melee evasion. Same can't be said about Mages. In fact, there was a Melee guy I was talking to who finished Trio on BT without any consumables. Naturally he didn't do anything special/change his play style. Don't think I can say the same for Mages.

So IMO, if a melee is doing it right. They will have *PLENTY* of spirit to take advantage of Spirit Shield + Spirit Mode. Or maybe they were just using the wrong weapon to begin with (it doesn't *always* have to be about slaughter (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif) )

No, low difficulty is rather easy, that's even why the lowest difficulty is called just that.
And for the lower difficulties melees don't even need to use spirit shield except against bosses, so there spirit is not an issue.
And at higher difficulties monsters are not stunned all the time, since there is no perma-stun anymore.
Monsters do tend to have a lot of mana and spirit tho, due to regenerating it while being stunned, since the low damage output of melees mean that monsters live for a long while on higher difficulties. Which means that a high proportion of their hits are special attacks, which will cost spirit to absorb.
And mana is used up by melees just by having the important buffs running, such as heartseeker, regen II and spirit shield, which are all must-haves in higher difficulties (in lower you can do without spirit shield).
Yeah, mages scoff at that, considering the low cost per turn those things have. But melees spend a lot of turns whacking those monsters over and over, and those costs starts to add up.

And I'd really wanna talk to the guy who did Trio on BT without consumables.
Either he had some really good gear or some real luck with power gems.
Either that, or there is some secret that I've been missing out on.

I can do trio without consumables on hard difficulty, and with some luck even on heroic, but more than that and consumables becomes necessary.

And mages can do it too, they just have to stop a little now and then to charge up mana with ET.
But mages don't do that, they find it boring and time-consuming.

Scrolled up. Did not see any post by T

https://forums.e-hentai.org/index.php?s=&am...t&p=1528444

It's a little easier. When I was playing Melee I could move the screen off to the side and just hold down my numpad while I watched youtube videos/movies/etc. You can just hold down the button and watch as the life bars drain.

When I swapped to mage I found I had to concentrate way more to move through the rounds (especially if I wanted to go through them fast)

Yep, lower difficulties really are no-brainers.
But bosses and higher difficulties are not.
A bit of inattention and suddenly you'll be dead from someone slipping in 2 special attacks in a row (yes, that happens, and quite frequently too, due to them having maxed mana after having had a streak of good stuns).

Groundless statement. Like I mentioned. I was messaging a melee guy who did T&T on BT without consumables. His gear wasn't exactly stellar. In fact, I sold him most of his gear. T&T on BT is a feat I have yet to do/know whether I can do or not.

All I can say is that I have never done T&T on BT. And I even failed doing the schoolgirl marathons on normal difficulty.
Until I switched over to mage, where I completed it even with low proficiencies and really shitty gear.

No one in their right mind will do schoolgirl marathons at higher difficulties often. And those that want to try, are using the wrong approach. With the exception of sushi ofc.

Me, playing a melee, having decent melee gear and high melee proficiencies (my 2H proficiency is a pretty impressive 248,96 at level 249) can't do them at all at higher difficulties. I can't even do them at lower difficulties (I still do them at high difficulty just for the xp modifiers, but only up to the first schoolgirl, which at BT is about where I run out of consumables anyways).

I had to go mage just to complete them for the clear bonus.

You're probably using the wrong approach. You shouldn't need OMFG gear to go through normal. My melee contact did it with an Exq mace of slaughter I lent him. He also did it with an superior estoc of slaughter. Both non eth. Both very very buyable in today's/past half a year's market.

I'd like to see someone do the schoolgirl marathon with a non-etheral estoc.
And for the wrong approach, as you said yourself, melee is kind of a no-brainer, how many approaches are there?
What skills or spells or tactics did your contact use?

I never really bothered with that thread because it was a tad silly to begin with "Showing that melee can compete with mages, when it comes to speed." If melee was as fast a Mage, Mage would be obsolete. This goes back to my statement from above: Considering how most players play here, Mage was the style most suited for them to begin with.

At the same time, telling Mages not to use expendables was pretty silly as well. You think our spells are free or something? We *need* mana to kill. I would assume you'd at least have understood that. ET is not our main source of mana refill. It's our *back up*

Read the starting post in that thread.
Where do you find melee vs mage?
It was about what tactics people use, to try and find out the right approach.
It was actually mostly geared towards melees, to see how other fighting styles than 2H did it, if they were even viable, if there was a combination of buffs that were better than others etc.

Unfortunately, the thread quickly derailed into mages scoffing at how the "rules" for the "competition" favored melees, and how it should instead be how quick you can clear it at higher difficulty.

The no expendables was so people shouldn't be busting out flower vases and elixirs in order to get the best times, but more simulate a normal run. And I quickly dropped that demand.
I blame it on me not having a lot of experience with mages back then, since I was pure melee.

It did serve to convince me that mages were superior tho.

T removed that bug because he was worried about permi spirit mode. If it had stayed you'd have low level melee's running around Spirit Moding on 2H until they were out of spirit.

Duh...

tl;dr I like the changes in this patch. Everything is better/adaptable to

As mentioned above, I won't pick a stand whether about how much worse/better things are for melee. But for myself as a mage, I have no problems with the changes in this patch. I was probably misunderstood about my statement. It was from a mage perspective.

Right... (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

Nothing changed for mage ... It must be hard for you to 'adapted' to this patch but it seem you succeed now since you find everything to be better for you. I'm still struggling a bit, though... I had tried forging my gear numerous time, upgrading more item slot, even getting a faster browser! And it still slower and I still find everything to be worse. What's your trick to adapt to this 'change' so quickly?! (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif)

I *do* know is there is no one that likes getting flamed/getting fuckload of negative comments - which I feel T is getting a lot of. It's been done. Flaming him won't change anything for the better. In fact it'd probably make it worse.

Have you even read what he wrote? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

Just to point out, I didn't flame Tenb; well I did a few, but I stopped once after I get a good response, i.e. silence but still around, which typically means that he will work it out somehow... If you still see me flaming someone, it's at somebody else.

This post has been edited by buktore: Dec 27 2011, 04:29

So I just thought of something new for Mazes. Assuming it's completed successfully, restore 50% of your maximum overcharge and 50 Spirit. It'll help warriors/melee players keep their Spirit and Overcharge high, and thus allow them to stay in Spirit Mode longer. Just a thought.

Flame on!
(IMG:[upload.wikimedia.org] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d8/Human_Torch.png)

LOL j/k but that is a coolawesome expression.

Since you're asking for it ...

CM has everything to do with Domino Strikes(specific part of 2H)... Think about it. You're using an area-of-effect spell. It hits a bunch of monsters. You got a chance for CM from each hit (before) but now it gets cut off once even one of them gets CM effect proc'd. You use a 2H weapon and it hits multiple monsters. They each charged your bar on a hit, but now it only limits you to one hit. See the similarity? The algorithm is very close in principle.

wut

Have you even read the link I give you? CM got fixed months ago (click to read) ... The 2H gain multiple OC bug (which didn't really give any real benefits before this patch) got fixed a few days ago. I see no connection between the 2 bugs.

This post has been edited by buktore: Dec 27 2011, 03:21

For the most part, this update wasn't bad. It was pretty good. The Forge is nice (other than converting eth damage, there aren't any other features I'm feeling are really missing from it). The new equipment screen is nice. The misc stuff is nice. Spirit being transitioned to its intended form, which Tenboro told us would be happening at some point, was nice. Finally getting Skills was nice. What's not nice was the disappointment over the incompleteness of Skills and how it has affected melee gameplay.

Unfinished features is pretty common in of HV updates. Its expected. Usually, the changes are pretty benign. Here's Crystals, they don't do anything yet. Here's the Monster Lab, it doesn't do anything yet. Here, feed your Monsters Crystals. Look, your Monster brought you a Present, but they don't do anything yet. There's nothing wrong with that. But ONE Skill per fighting style, some of which are less effective than others, that drain ALL of your OC, which no longer provides a damage buff by the way, is a bit much.

As I've stated before, its pretty half-assed and I feel that its a feature that shouldn't have been rolled out until it was more complete. Yes, there would have been bitching then, too, but it would have been about something different and probably less founded. I agree that the passive bonus from OC needed to go, but the avenue given to us to compensate for that loss was inadequate. Being able to use more than one Skill at a time before having to recharge should have been that avenue, not a re-branded Spirit Attack and a fighting stance. I don't really have any issues with Spirit Mode that couldn't be addressed by future tweaks as balancing is done. It'll probably even be pretty awesome once the kinks are worked out. My issue is that we got only one Skill and it doesn't play well with Spirit Mode -- we've got to choose one or the other and neither is as good a choice compared to what we used to have in OC bonus and Spirit Attack.

I think the situation was handled poorly by every side -- Tenboro, the whiners, the pot-stirrers, the well-meaning discussions, everyone. Tenboro saying that he's already made changes to Spirit Mode and the existing Skills in the dev build is promising. I hope the changes were due to some of the feedback that was given (hopefully some of it was from the constructive and the rest not so much). I've made some comments that "Tenboro hate melee LOL", but they have been tongue-in-cheek with no real intent of malice for the most part. Yes, I'm miffed at how efficient magic is compared to melee. No, I'm not one of those god-mages who prance through Heroic Schoolgirl marathons -- I use generic Elementalist gear (not even crappy EDB Phase) casting T1 Elec-Fire in Normal IW. I mostly care about maintaining my gear and maging through it is twice as fast and twice as easy as when I use one of my melee sets. No, I don't have to think any more when I'm using magic than I do when I don't -- they're both equally auto-pilot mode. But the power-to-effort disparity is demoralizing.

Just thought I'd set the record straight regarding my thoughts on this patch.

i feel happy because HV game still open in free

That's why I complain quietly to myself.

For the most part, this update wasn't bad. It was pretty good. The Forge is nice (other than converting eth damage, there aren't any other features I'm feeling are really missing from it). The new equipment screen is nice. The misc stuff is nice. Spirit being transitioned to its intended form, which Tenboro told us would be happening at some point, was nice. Finally getting Skills was nice. What's not nice was the disappointment over the incompleteness of Skills and how it has affected melee gameplay.

Unfinished features is pretty common in of HV updates. Its expected. Usually, the changes are pretty benign. Here's Crystals, they don't do anything yet. Here's the Monster Lab, it doesn't do anything yet. Here, feed your Monsters Crystals. Look, your Monster brought you a Present, but they don't do anything yet. There's nothing wrong with that. But ONE Skill per fighting style, some of which are less effective than others, that drain ALL of your OC, which no longer provides a damage buff by the way, is a bit much.

As I've stated before, its pretty half-assed and I feel that its a feature that shouldn't have been rolled out until it was more complete. Yes, there would have been bitching then, too, but it would have been about something different and probably less founded. I agree that the passive bonus from OC needed to go, but the avenue given to us to compensate for that loss was inadequate. Being able to use more than one Skill at a time before having to recharge should have been that avenue, not a re-branded Spirit Attack and a fighting stance. I don't really have any issues with Spirit Mode that couldn't be addressed by future tweaks as balancing is done. It'll probably even be pretty awesome once the kinks are worked out. My issue is that we got only one Skill and it doesn't play well with Spirit Mode -- we've got to choose one or the other and neither is as good a choice compared to what we used to have in OC bonus and Spirit Attack.

I think the situation was handled poorly by every side -- Tenboro, the whiners, the pot-stirrers, the well-meaning discussions, everyone. Tenboro saying that he's already made changes to Spirit Mode and the existing Skills in the dev build is promising. I hope the changes were due to some of the feedback that was given (hopefully some of it was from the constructive and the rest not so much). I've made some comments that "Tenboro hate melee LOL", but they have been tongue-in-cheek with no real intent of malice for the most part. Yes, I'm miffed at how efficient magic is compared to melee. No, I'm not one of those god-mages who prance through Heroic Schoolgirl marathons -- I use generic Elementalist gear (not even crappy EDB Phase) casting T1 Elec-Fire in Normal IW. I mostly care about maintaining my gear and maging through it is twice as fast and twice as easy as when I use one of my melee sets. No, I don't have to think any more when I'm using magic than I do when I don't -- they're both equally auto-pilot mode. But the power-to-effort disparity is demoralizing.

Just thought I'd set the record straight regarding my thoughts on this patch.

Pretty much what I think as well, and playing incomplete features that affect the whole game isn't the kind of thing that makes a game enjoyable (because we pretty much have to *wait* for these features to be finished and effective to not feel shafted) and honestly I enjoy playing this to some extent when my brain doesn't feel like working too hard. (Some, like the people who beg for others to "not complain" would argue that HV is not supposed to be enjoyable, but why else is everyone with a 200+ level counter playing it when even the most ardent porn-posters can't rise above double digits through galleries alone?)

And why is there a marked disparity of mechanics between melee and magic users? Honestly, their main method of attack (damage spells) should raise an otherwise unused mechanic (overcharge) so they'd be encouraged to actually use it as well. Melees have to juggle more core resource mechanics than mages do due to now having to worry about spirit and OC tank on top of mana usage and health. Elemental weakness debuffs don't particularly count as a resource mechanic; it's like casting big spells to hope Channeling kicks in for any player, and melee attacks do NOT trigger Channeling.

This post has been edited by Bunker Buster: Dec 27 2011, 05:25

I've made some comments that "Tenboro hate melee LOL", but they have been tongue-in-cheek with no real intent of malice for the most part

Wait... So you didn't want him dead? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

I certainly don't like the change of direction that it seem to be going. But I'm a reasonable man and I won't going to bitch about something merely because I don't like it. I may complain, perhaps, but not bitching for change since that would be suicidal; I pick my target wisely, only the one that can't shoot back. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)

This post has been edited by buktore: Dec 27 2011, 05:25

Does that mean that melee FSM battles will go back to lasting 3000-4000 rounds? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/mellow.gif) I'm too scared to try.

Actually Spirit Mode replaces infusions and renders them practically useless. That's pretty cool, I just killed FSM on normal without infusions in 249 rounds and it didn't feel worse than before. Spirit Mode on, Complain Mode off, I guess. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) Until I try End of Days, at least. Recovering all that Spirit in such long arenas will be a problem..

dcherry: "ET is not our main source of mana refill. It's our *back up*"
Well, I remember relying on my Redwood staff that had nearly 50% chance back when you could actually live on ET. I was a little annoyed because I couldn't do the level 150+ item worlds anymore but I got over it. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Oh, and this was back when a staff over 40% was as rare as hell.

You can still do it. It's just very time consuming. Time is credits. And it shouldn't take that long to recover the expenses incurred of just chugging a mana pot instead.

I said reason for whining, which is not automatically the same thing as a valid reason.
The very least you can do, is to look at that reason, and then see if it is valid or not.

Whining = extra reading filler = wasting a lot of time when reading. I've had to waste lots of time reading the posts here that seem to basically say "you're mage, what you say are not valid". I understand melee's are in a grumpy mood but they're not handling their grumpiness well at all. I know! Next time I won't bother suggesting anything to T that'll help Melees out! Especially since it seems to be garnering me bad karma. It seems you're trying to be objective here so I'll give props for that.

But in order for someone to look at it, there has to be whining.

Not sure why you see it that way. There's always an alternative to whining. Maybe our definitions of whining are different.

And if there is a lot of whining from a lot of people, that means a lot of people thinks this should be looked at.
It does not mean that whiners are worthless for whining and therefore everything they whine about is irrelevant.
That's your choice how you want to treat them.

Well you're right a lot of melee posters in this thread do feel it should be looked at. But whining won't get them anything IMO. Rather than making T sympathetic towards them he'll be apathetic because of what he's getting at the moment.

So yeah, monsters don't hit mace melees all that much, but in longer rounds (bosses or higher difficulties) a lot of those hits are special attacks.Which means spirit shield and high cost in spirit for longer arenas, if there are lots of bosses or at a high difficulty.

Well most rounds are 1uncommon per round and the legendary arenas are 1 boss per round. Final rounds are a few more but those are so rare it's not really worth mentioning (final round of each legendary arena). DwD is meant to be a bitch regardless (3 schoolgirls per round in latter quarter). Not sure what arenas you're doing =\

http://ehwiki.org/wiki/arena

While it's true that the new patch made Maces more unfavorable (they can whack upon leaving stun) I think the Melee still hold the definite advantage with the stun. It's just the passive OC loss that's messing them up. Like I suggested, OC passive + spirit mode will work fine. I strongly believe a melee player will be able to use it. In fact, it might even encourage some item strats where melee's carry spirit potions instead of their usual consumables.

And mana is used up by melees just by having the important buffs running, such as heartseeker, regen II and spirit shield, which are all must-haves in higher difficulties (in lower you can do without spirit shield).
Yeah, mages scoff at that, considering the low cost per turn those things have. But melees spend a lot of turns whacking those monsters over and over, and those costs starts to add up.

I'll admit I don't think those prices are scoff worthy especially since I swapped to melee to take out RL and I was like "whoa wtf this is a tad expensive" but unless they have really low damage output/shitty prof they should be able to control their pre buff mana spending pretty decently. Because seriously... if you're not spending mana on your supportive spells, what *are* you spending it on?

And I'd really wanna talk to the guy who did Trio on BT without consumables.
Either he had some really good gear or some real luck with power gems.
Either that, or there is some secret that I've been missing out on.

I knew you would, hence why I left in anonymous. I think he did admit he was lucky with the gems, but he cleared T&T BT numerous times using far less mana potions than me (usually used 4 or under compared to my full 13 for NINTENDO T&T back in the day)

Like I said, most of his gear came from me. Most of it wasn't that great. They weren't shit either, though.

If there was a secret, he didn't tell me about it.

And mages can do it too, they just have to stop a little now and then to charge up mana with ET.

But mages don't do that, they find it boring and time-consuming.

Yes and no. If the difficulty is low, our staff hits kill the ET target most of the time. If the difficulty is high, it wouldn't be surprising to be whacked around just trying to leech that mana. Boring yes/no is up to the player.

Time consuming - yes. If ET/coalesced is guaranteed upon every try then no. But it's taken me anywhere between 1-4 turns to start coalesced (good luck trying to survive that many MM's on normal) and 1-4 whacks (yeah i can usually lap them unless they're super fast) to land ET. These aren't exaggerations. So it can take me up to 8 turn just to get ~80 mana back (if it's a high mana monster they're already dead by now since they're probably fragile). During those 8 turns I lost about 4 mana per turn? So I get a netgain of ~50 mana.

Most people forget about the mana lost from supportive spells being up. Regen 2 isn't exactly cheap especially if you have to hard cast it (which is most likely to happen). ET-ing is very overrated by non-Mages it seems =\

https://forums.e-hentai.org/index.php?s=&am...t&p=1528444

Ah I didn't get that far back. I think it was T's way to lay the groundwork for future benefits to melee and want people to get used to the whole skill system vs passive damage. My belief is that his goal is for melee skills to exceed the passive damage's usefulness. Unfortunately for melee players (and him as a consequence of the negative feedback) the skill system is not well developed yet. Hence why the change is viewed as a nerf.

A bit of inattention and suddenly you'll be dead from someone slipping in 2 special attacks in a row (yes, that happens, and quite frequently too, due to them having maxed mana after having had a streak of good stuns).

Similarly happens for mages too. I've died numerous times. My inattention to notice that the system didn't register my hotkey demand means I whack the monster with a staff when he has 8 buddies around him.

But to the point of higher difficulties - yes you're right. I should have elaborated my point more. It was tailored specifically for lower difficulties. In higher difficulties we *all* have to watch out and react accordingly to how the battle is playing out.

All I can say is that I have never done T&T on BT. And I even failed doing the schoolgirl marathons on normal difficulty.
Until I switched over to mage, where I completed it even with low proficiencies and really shitty gear.
Me, playing a melee, having decent melee gear and high melee proficiencies (my 2H proficiency is a pretty impressive 248,96 at level 249) can't do them at all at higher difficulties. I can't even do them at lower difficulties (I still do them at high difficulty just for the xp modifiers, but only up to the first schoolgirl, which at BT is about where I run out of consumables anyways).

I had to go mage just to complete them for the clear bonus.
I'd like to see someone do the schoolgirl marathon with a non-etheral estoc.

Let me guess. You used holy/dark magic? Maybe you're not using the right 2H strat to complete the school girl marathons? Because it sounds like you're using the right mage strat to do so. You may be using the "2H equivalent of Elec magic" vs them. Ie, wrong strat.

Btw, sushi hinted that he used a Scythe to clear his DwD on BT+ (not sure if it was BT or IWBTH). I think the problem is there isn't enough experimenting going on with melee (or if it is, it's very private like Bunko's case). Mages have a lot of good thinkers. Tiap+Varst+Ichy+ whoever else before my time + all that I've missed have all contributed to the mage knowledge base immensely. They find things out. I've seen buktore do it sometimes and cmdct did it a little but that's about it on the melee side. Skillchip does other research but he hasn't put his sights on melee mechanics that I know of (yet).

And for the wrong approach, as you said yourself, melee is kind of a no-brainer, how many approaches are there?
What skills or spells or tactics did your contact use?

I've mentioned how mages have to use their head (a little more) in battle. But equipment wise I'd argue melee's have to use their head more. I'd say there's far more variety+thought put into melee gear than mage gear. What weapon? Stun? Bleed? PA? What stats prioritized? Interference? Evasion? Mitigation? ADM? Mage gear gathering is much more simple (Destruct staff + dmg gear) Just because Mace is the poster child of patch 0.6.0 or w/e doesn't mean it's the best option for school girls.

Read the starting post in that thread.
Where do you find melee vs mage?
It was about what tactics people use, to try and find out the right approach.

https://forums.e-hentai.org/index.php?s=&am...t&p=1448191

Was quoting you when I put that line in quotations. I didn't get to your thread until after that post was made and I lost interested immediately upon reading it. Competition vs data collecting are two very different things IMO (I personally support the latter but could care less about the former)

Unfortunately, the thread quickly derailed into mages scoffing at how the "rules" for the "competition" favored melees, and how it should instead be how quick you can clear it at higher difficulty.

Since it was a competition, egos were at stake so I could see how that fell apart.

It did serve to convince me that mages were superior tho.

Well like I said, time wise they are =)
They're more spendy with the potions but it pays off.

As mentioned above, I won't pick a stand whether about how much worse/better things are for melee. But for myself as a mage, I have no problems with the changes in this patch. I was probably misunderstood about my statement. It was from a mage perspective.
Right... (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

Well I know you're not happy with the changes and normally you're a cool guy and you're probably letting your emotions speak for you but I don't think you guys are giving this patch a chance. Like I said, I'm not in a position to say whether it's really worse/better off for melees. When mage EDB was nerfed and mages were whining I didn't say anything. I adapted and moved on. Mages said the patch made us worse off but I was still able to clear my rounds at a reasonably safe pace - I just had to make adjustments to how I played.

Nothing changed for mage ... It must be hard for you to 'adapted' to this patch but it seem you succeed now since you find everything to be better for you. I'm still struggling a bit, though... I had tried forging my gear numerous time, upgrading more item slot, even getting a faster browser! And it still slower and I still find everything to be worse. What's your trick to adapt to this 'change' so quickly?! (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif)

Well like I said "I like the changes in this patch. Everything is better/adaptable to"

I like the changes. Nothing changed for mages gameplay/in battle wise. Forge was brought in. Item shop interface was revamped. Equipment interfaced was revamped. I think these are all *good* things. Should I NOT be grateful for those? I would say things have gotten better because of those.

As for adaptable to - that applies mainly to the loss of stamina regeneration I've mentioned in the hentaiverse chat a few times to give people a head's up. Pretty easy to adapt to it since it was a small change and there's really only one solution. Likewise the restoration to other vitals means I have to be careful how I end the rounds and what spells I use in my arenas but again - it's a small change and requires small adaptation.

As for the lag, I can't help you there. It's probably one of the reasons why I swapped to Mage. Mage is more lag friendly in a way.

Have you even read what he wrote? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

I didn't read it - I don't read everything. Takes too long. But have you read everything that I wrote? I suggested that passive OC should be brought back. I also think T planned (and he mentioned in that link) that there would be more skills that would hopefully balance out the loss of passive OC. I know that flaming T won't do anything productive.

Shown here https://forums.e-hentai.org/index.php?s=&am...t&p=1530123 I suggested that passive OC should be brought back especially since the skill system is still in development

I think some of you should sit back and think about things. Give the patch some time. Try things out. Who ever said Mace is still king? Who ever said it should be? Who ever said slaughter was the best suffix? It doesn't have to be. What's stopping it from being the next focus mod? It took quite a bit of time to construct this reply (as well as the others prior to this) so I could avoid the nitpickers that are so common on forums - I don't really want to be doing this again. But I seriously wish people would think before they type. It would save everyone a lot of grief. This is probably also why T stopped giving replies. I'm only replying to 2 people (comment to lovehcomics was fast/simple) and it took me an hour.

@Derpy Yes I agree the passive OC shouldn't have been taken out yet with the developmental skill system. T was probably worried it'd make things *too* strong for the OC stackage (passive + spirit mode) since he'd rather make weak changes and build them up than make strong changes and tone them down. Look at the Mace example. I coulda sworn that was a fast patch because he realized that +100% was just *too* much.

(fuck I feel like a broken record. How many times do I have to repeat that part about the passive OC)

And we can say however much we want, but honestly I think the melee knowledge base itself is *very* underdeveloped. Like I mentioned, most of the thinkers are mages. Bunko does a lot of tests but he keeps the data to himself (and rightfully so, everyone seems to hate him here for some unknown reason to me)

@eleeinos Why not just do infusion+spirit mode? O_o

But have you read everything that I wrote?

Oh I did (not like you...), and this is what I said:

My thought Tenb ...

So it seem there will be some change. Great! Few thought ...

- There should, even a must, be an ability that either give passive dmg bonus (like OC boost used to be) or increased effectiveness of some kind of active in-battle dmg bonus mechanics in some way (the current OC boost barely gives any benefits, you can stay in SP mode longer but it take longer time to fill the OC as well, and the dmg bonus to skill is meh, just like the old spirit attack). One of the satisfaction and joy a melee player can get in HV is to try to earn AP point and put it into this ability and know that their character become stronger, and the thought that the next tier of this ability will be there every 10 lv or so is one of the thing that keep you motivated to continue doing it. I've been there, done that.

- Enough with the skill that just a new version of spirit attack (i.e. use it, awesome, and you're fucked afterward).

I'm done with you. I like anime. Not interested in drama nonsense.

This post has been edited by buktore: Dec 27 2011, 06:08

And we can say however much we want, but honestly I think the melee knowledge base itself is *very* underdeveloped. Like I mentioned, most of the thinkers are mages. Bunko does a lot of tests but he keeps the data to himself (and rightfully so, everyone seems to hate him here for some unknown reason to me)

That's the reason people hate him.

@eleeinos Why not just do infusion+spirit mode? O_o

Because I like not having to open the inventory every 20 or so turns (or pressing accidentally the wrong shortcut key), not having to keep an eye on when the infusion expires since I always realize it many turns later, and because now I don't have to camp in the item shop waiting for holy/dark infusions to show up (since I'm always out of those two, thanks to daily End of Days runs before my long break). Phew. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

That's the reason people hate him.

And yet (IMG:[i44.tinypic.com] http://i44.tinypic.com/wje91j.jpg) (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

This post has been edited by eleeinos: Dec 27 2011, 06:20

I don't use a mace with my 2H set. True story.

Whining = extra reading filler = wasting a lot of time when reading. I've had to waste lots of time reading the posts here that seem to basically say "you're mage, what you say are not valid". I understand melee's are in a grumpy mood but they're not handling their grumpiness well at all. I know! Next time I won't bother suggesting anything to T that'll help Melees out! Especially since it seems to be garnering me bad karma. It seems you're trying to be objective here so I'll give props for that.
Not sure why you see it that way. There's always an alternative to whining. Maybe our definitions of whining are different.
Well you're right a lot of melee posters in this thread do feel it should be looked at. But whining won't get them anything IMO. Rather than making T sympathetic towards them he'll be apathetic because of what he's getting at the moment.

Yeah, I was just assuming that the general definition of a whiner as "someone who dislikes something and has another opinion than me" and whining then being anything that whiner has to say.

One of my first posts about this subject in this thread contains some math on the issue, showing how bad the change actually is.

Overall, the changes to overcharge and spirit mode has greatly hurt melees in comparison to mages, and shifted a balance that was already in mages favor.
With full overcharge, you got a constant 93,3% damage boost, after a few hits of filling up the overcharge bar. Now you can instead get a 100% damage boost (a tiny damage increase of about 3,5%, since damage goes from 193,3% to 200%, not from 93,3% to 100%) and it costs you spirit points to use as well as takes a turn to activate, and it depletes your overcharge, meaning you have to recharge it, where you then have no damage increase at all.
In short, it's a nerf to melee damage output, not a buff. At least for the higher-lvl players.

To add some more math to that, to understand the new spirit mode.
It gives a 100% damage increase while active, but no damage when not active.
Tenboro stated in an earlier post that you get 5-10% OC per successful attack, and that you get this while spirit mode is active, making it last longer for melees.
But since the amount gained is static and the amount drained is static, that means higher OC from OC tanks just means it takes longer to fill up so there is no real benefit from it. Except that you don't have to spend a turn activating it as often.

So round it out to 7,5% OC gained per attack, and assume a 100% hit ratio, and no OC tanks for a 100% OC.
That means it would take 13 turns to get full OC (rounding it down), and then spirit mode would drain 10% per turn but you would gain 7,5% back for every attack, giving a net drain of 2,5%. Meaning Spirit mode would last 40 turns. So for a full cycle of this, 53 turns, you will have it on for roughly 75% of the time.
So you could essentially say that you get 75% damage bonus from it, compared to 33% damage bonus from the old OC, without any points into OC tanks.
But that assumes no turns spent on activating spirit mode, and no turns spent casting buffs, heals or using potions or power gems.
And that every attack hits.
Anything other that every single action being a succesful attack, means the theoretical 75% damage bonus drops.

And remember, with full OC tanks, you got a 93% damage bonus, not dependant on unrealistic things such as every action being a succesful attack.

Well most rounds are 1uncommon per round and the legendary arenas are 1 boss per round. Final rounds are a few more but those are so rare it's not really worth mentioning (final round of each legendary arena). DwD is meant to be a bitch regardless (3 schoolgirls per round in latter quarter). Not sure what arenas you're doing =\

http://ehwiki.org/wiki/arena

While it's true that the new patch made Maces more unfavorable (they can whack upon leaving stun) I think the Melee still hold the definite advantage with the stun. It's just the passive OC loss that's messing them up. Like I suggested, OC passive + spirit mode will work fine. I strongly believe a melee player will be able to use it. In fact, it might even encourage some item strats where melee's carry spirit potions instead of their usual consumables.

I do the higher arenas, and with several bosses I meant the schoolgirl marathons and then I was referring to doing arenas at a higher difficulty rating than "hard".
And that in itself is enough, with a room full of monsters that are below half-life and has full mana, if you have a few misses with no stuns, you can suddenly get 2-3 special attacks against you in a single turn.

And how does melee hold the advantage? You mean in comparison to mages?
Then I think you are the only one that has that opinion.

Melees do so little damage that stun is a necessary survival tool for melees, to decrease the incoming damage, since physical mitigation and evasion isn't doing the job all that well (For example, in my phase set I got 38,7% physical mitigation, in my shade set it's 47,8% and in my kevlar it's 55,7%. My evasion in shade is 33,5% and in phase 29,4%, mitigation and evade is given such big bonuses from auras and stats that mage gear isn't all that much worse in these regards).
I have tried using a pretty good etheral longsword that I have, that does both good damage and has a very nice bleed.
While it does do more damage, the fact that there is no stun means I take more than twice as much damage, making it impossible on higher difficulties.
And on lower difficulties, mobs die too fast for the bleed to really do it's full damage, meaning the 50% damage increase against a stunned enemy ends up doing more damage.

I don't have an ethereal mace, and this really makes giants much much harder, so that might do quite a bit of difference if I got one.
But you really shouldn't be forced into having a certain piece of specialized gear just to be viable, that in itself means there is a problem.

Scythes also use bleed so no real major difference there and penetrated armor from estocs is a worse damage enhancer than stun for pretty much all monsters, and without having the damage-reducing effect that stun has.


That means, that as a melee you can do lower difficulties, but it still takes a few turns in order to clear each turn. At the same difficulty level a mage one-shots everything.
At higher difficulties, mobs last longer and actually hit back hard enough to hurt you, especially with special attacks, that you have to use spirit shield to soak up the big ones in order to not suffer a sudden death.

I'll admit I don't think those prices are scoff worthy especially since I swapped to melee to take out RL and I was like "whoa wtf this is a tad expensive" but unless they have really low damage output/shitty prof they should be able to control their pre buff mana spending pretty decently. Because seriously... if you're not spending mana on your supportive spells, what *are* you spending it on?

Yeah. See, low damage output is melees problem.
And the change to OC made that problem even worse.

We spend mana on supportive spells and on healing spells.
I usually have haste, heartseeker and Regen II running, and spirit shield at anything higher than "hard".
With the amount of turns it takes to clear a room full of enemies, that is a considerable cost.

Add in the odd Cure spell thrown in here and there after having received a few particularly hard hits and your mana drains pretty quickly.
And then I got both gold aura and rainbow aura, and have wisdom as one of my highest stats.

I knew you would, hence why I left in anonymous. I think he did admit he was lucky with the gems, but he cleared T&T BT numerous times using far less mana potions than me (usually used 4 or under compared to my full 13 for NINTENDO T&T back in the day)

Like I said, most of his gear came from me. Most of it wasn't that great. They weren't shit either, though.

If there was a secret, he didn't tell me about it.

I don't think I could do T&T at BT at all. I'm not sure I could do it at anything harder than nightmare, even with full use of all the pots I carry.

With higher difficulty you need more buffs running (spirit shield) which costs more mana, and the monsters last longer meaning each round costs more mana, and they hit harder meaning Regen II is not enough to keep you filled up all the time but you have to complement it with cure, costing more mana......
And add in the costs to spirit from the heavy hits, and now also from spirit mode, and you have to carry spirit potions as well, taking slots away from mana potions.

Yes and no. If the difficulty is low, our staff hits kill the ET target most of the time. If the difficulty is high, it wouldn't be surprising to be whacked around just trying to leech that mana. Boring yes/no is up to the player.

Time consuming - yes. If ET/coalesced is guaranteed upon every try then no. But it's taken me anywhere between 1-4 turns to start coalesced (good luck trying to survive that many MM's on normal) and 1-4 whacks (yeah i can usually lap them unless they're super fast) to land ET. These aren't exaggerations. So it can take me up to 8 turn just to get ~80 mana back (if it's a high mana monster they're already dead by now since they're probably fragile). During those 8 turns I lost about 4 mana per turn? So I get a netgain of ~50 mana.

Most people forget about the mana lost from supportive spells being up. Regen 2 isn't exactly cheap especially if you have to hard cast it (which is most likely to happen). ET-ing is very overrated by non-Mages it seems =\

I know Regen 2 isn't cheap. We melees have to have it going pretty much all the time. And our proficiency tends to be lower due to higher interference and no proficiency boost from gear.
And we have to hard-cast it pretty much every single time.

Ah I didn't get that far back. I think it was T's way to lay the groundwork for future benefits to melee and want people to get used to the whole skill system vs passive damage. My belief is that his goal is for melee skills to exceed the passive damage's usefulness. Unfortunately for melee players (and him as a consequence of the negative feedback) the skill system is not well developed yet. Hence why the change is viewed as a nerf.
Similarly happens for mages too. I've died numerous times. My inattention to notice that the system didn't register my hotkey demand means I whack the monster with a staff when he has 8 buddies around him.

But to the point of higher difficulties - yes you're right. I should have elaborated my point more. It was tailored specifically for lower difficulties. In higher difficulties we *all* have to watch out and react accordingly to how the battle is playing out.

If you didn't go that far back, no wonder you think we are all just whining, you've missed out on the heavy arguments, which means we'd be repeating ourselves if we used them again, so we had already moved on to lighter arguments.

Yep, you get whacked, but you can use spirit shield to mitigate that so you don't die. If you kill all but one monster, that makes it easy to manage.
And since you get fewer heavy hits and clear rounds quicker, you shouldn't suffer the same type of drain on spirit.
And hey, you can actually get spirit points back similar to how you get mana back, by using Soul Reaper.

A combo I used on the schoolgirl marathon when maging it. Cast Soul Reaper until CM procs, then hit them with the staff to both proc ET and suck up the Soul Reaper proc.
That does both damage and gives spirit and mana. And with just a single schoolgirl, it's basically rinse and repeat for a no-brainer easy victory.

Let me guess. You used holy/dark magic? Maybe you're not using the right 2H strat to complete the school girl marathons? Because it sounds like you're using the right mage strat to do so. You may be using the "2H equivalent of Elec magic" vs them. Ie, wrong strat.

Btw, sushi hinted that he used a Scythe to clear his DwD on BT+ (not sure if it was BT or IWBTH). I think the problem is there isn't enough experimenting going on with melee (or if it is, it's very private like Bunko's case). Mages have a lot of good thinkers. Tiap+Varst+Ichy+ whoever else before my time + all that I've missed have all contributed to the mage knowledge base immensely. They find things out. I've seen buktore do it sometimes and cmdct did it a little but that's about it on the melee side. Skillchip does other research but he hasn't put his sights on melee mechanics that I know of (yet).

If someone clears a schoolgirl marathon on BT or IWBTH with anything other than a mace, I'd like to hear it from them. Especially with the changes in the latest patch.

What someone did several patches ago, before I started playing, is kind of irrelevant, due to how much has changed just in the time that I have played.


I do a bit of tinkering myself, but that has mostly been with other parts of the game, since the melee mechanics are rather limited.

I've mentioned how mages have to use their head (a little more) in battle. But equipment wise I'd argue melee's have to use their head more. I'd say there's far more variety+thought put into melee gear than mage gear. What weapon? Stun? Bleed? PA? What stats prioritized? Interference? Evasion? Mitigation? ADM? Mage gear gathering is much more simple (Destruct staff + dmg gear) Just because Mace is the poster child of patch 0.6.0 or w/e doesn't mean it's the best option for school girls.

Mace is generally seen as the best 2-hander, for rather obvious reasons.
Not only does it give a very high damage boost, but it also decreases the amount of incoming damage so much that it in itself is the primary defensive "skill" of melees.

Bleed does more damage over time, but causes you to take much more damage in return, forcing you to heal more often, which means the enemy can hit you even more, increasing the damage you take and means you can't attack that turn which decreases your damage output.
With the result that it drains more mana.

https://forums.e-hentai.org/index.php?s=&am...t&p=1448191
Was quoting you when I put that line in quotations. I didn't get to your thread until after that post was made and I lost interested immediately upon reading it. Competition vs data collecting are two very different things IMO (I personally support the latter but could care less about the former)
Since it was a competition, egos were at stake so I could see how that fell apart.
Well like I said, time wise they are =)
They're more spendy with the potions but it pays off.

By the time that post was made, the thread and the point of it has pretty much already been killed off.
By whiners (people with a different opinion than me).

This post has been edited by Randommember: Dec 27 2011, 08:36

I don't use a mace with my 2H set. True story.

Interesting. What do you use?

No more answering points. Essays are troublesome. Looks like your definition of whiner isn't the same as mine as well.

Your statement appears to lack cohesion as well. Actually I'm finding it hard to follow specifically what your trail of thought is considering your past postings. It's as if you're replying point by point without regard for the previous points.

I feel like I answered a brick wall in my previous reply now because I basically got the same thing back again.

And hard casting Regen 2 every single time? Sounds like poor channeling management to me.

As for the Dovahkin. I know of 1 melee that did it. He used a scythe. Day after this patch came out. Yes, Dovahkin. That means BT/IWBTH DwD. With a non-Mace. The weed-thwacker. The bleeder. Not sure if it was even eth. I'll even give you a hint, I mentioned him already + his weapon used in my previous reply.

You sound like you're trying to barrage me with theory. Theory only goes so far. Kinda like the whole mace thing just now.

E: Thought you were repeating yourself but I was wrong. Just a lot of telling me "what you do" and how agonizingly low melee damage is. That's probably it.

Also edited this out, but... Are you trolling me?

Inb4 classless backhanded reply - oh wait too late.

This post has been edited by dcherry: Dec 27 2011, 16:33

Interesting. What do you use?

His dick; he just whack it around a bit and they're all dead.


It's funny seeing a long reply 'arguing' each other even though no one seem to actually read what other wrote before response, and they can keep doing it for quite a few page... This is flamewar at its finest!

This post has been edited by buktore: Dec 27 2011, 09:22