Melee 3.0 completely destroyed melee build diversity

[lukinu_u]

First of all, don't get me wrong, the nerfs to Condition Overload, Bloodrush, Maiming Strike, etc... were more than welcome and make melee feels much more balanced.

Everything multiplying on top of each other were silly and that's what made melee stupidely overpowered, but that's also what provided build diversity. Everything stacking multiplicatively made almost every mod useful because some "bad mods" were working together with "good mods" which actually forced you to make choices, I will give a few examples :

• Sacrificial Pressure is +137.5% damages, Primed Pressure Point is +165% damages, Condition Overload +120% damages per status on target, beating both previous mods at 2 status and +1800% with all 15 status. Considering you can consistantly get 6 status on target for a +720% damages from the mod, since all 3 mods stack additively, why would you suit Condition Overload and Sacrificial Pressure/Primed Pressure Point for the low 14.4-16.7% increase it provide, compared to x8.2 when you could suit more useful mods ?
   
• Bloodrush gives +60% critical chances per combo level, up to 12 times at 220 hits (achieved easily), so +720% critical chances. Why would you use Sacrificial Steel or Maiming strike for a small +88-150% than only result in a 9.7-17.2% increase compared to the x8.2 bloodrush provide ?
   
• Weeping Wounds give +40% status chance per combo counter stacking 12 time, so +480%, which is actually better than using all 4 status elemental mods than only give +240%.
   

This actually mean the use of multiple mods of the same stat are not worth using and more than encourage hybrid builds over pure crit, pure status or pure damage builds since you get more benefit by stacking crit and status than stacking only crit du to the additive value and too good Bloodrush, Condition Overload and Weeping Wounds.
I think you got my point there, but that's not the only issue. Another big problem is some capped values, which further increase the problem, because instead of discouraging stacking mutliple time of the same value due to diminishing returns, it just prevent you from further increase the said stat because it's capped, and the cap is low enough to be reached easily :

• Status chances is capped at 100%, it's not that bad but due to how strong Weeping Wounds is, with the +480% this mods alone give, you only need a base 18% status chances to reach 100%, which make status above 18% basically useless on melee.
   
• Combo counter being capped at 220 / x12 make any combo gain mods useless since, that amount is reached easily doesn't decrease that fast so you don't really need combo duration exept to counter negative combo duration from Rivens. This mean Body Count, Drifting Contact, Quickening, Relentless Combination are not usable.

This means you have no reason to run a full status build because you have no benefit in going higher than 100% instead of crit, and you have no reason to use combo mods exept for QoL, but you really don't need that.

So basically, you get a ton of free slots from mods that are not worth using and status chance above 18% is useless. Since you have plenty of free mods slots, status weapons won't benefit from more status and crit based weapons will reach 100% status anyways with a single mod, it lead to a very obvious way of playing melee :

• Pick a crit based melee weapon, status chance really doesn't matter.
• Put Condition Overload, Bloodrush and Weeping Wounds which are mandatory.
• Fill the other slots with stuff that stack multiplicatively, so attack speed (both Primed Fury and Berserker since they stack multiplicatively), critical damages, elemetal damages  and range.
• If you have a Riven, use it but avoid the following stats :
  - base damages
  - critical changes (both regular and on slide attack)
  - status chances
  - anything related to combo
  - toxin since you already get it from Primed Fever Strike and generally want to go for gas/corrosive
  - finisher damages (because you know it's just useless)
  Also if you have attack speed on your Riven, it's recommanded to replacing Primed Fury with elemental mod or anything you are missing.

Maybe heavy attack could have been good and encourage modding around them, with charge rate, combo efficiency, etc... but sadly, they are juste a worst version of Magus Lockdown that scrap your combo counter each time you use them, so they are definitely not worth using and modding for...
Also, Gladiator set could give more diveristy since they give pretty decent amount of critical chance per combo, but you can suit these mods on Deconstructor, so it doesn't really work.


Sadly, I don't have much solutions to solve this and and I make this topic to point out the issues I see and finding solution together. 
The only thing I'm sure about right now is allowing status above 100% to encourage using status based weapons over critcal ones and at least get weapon diversity if we don't necessarily get a bunch of diversity in a way of modding.

 

[Skaleek]

I've actually gone back and forth with this issue. The current argument around the forums right now is PPP is for killing things quickly, and CO is used to "ramp up". Higher ceiling, lower floor.

They aren't wrong either. Using C/O only often does result in needing 1-2 more hits to kill enemies in the mid-high tier level area 60-100. Also liches are status immune so, CO is definitely not the optimal choice for them. BR and WW? Yeah they are pretty strong, but without + combo duration, it's somewhat difficult keeping your multiplier up at 12x, so yeah, again, the higher floor vs higher ceiling paradigm.

If you are only looking at your top end damage potential, C/O, BR, WW take the cake hands down. But if you're looking to speed through our current content, you'll have to re-evaluate, because PPP gets the job done.

I have seen a few threads saying that they should make the crappier crit mods additive instead of multiplicative, whilst keeping BR only multiplicative with base. I like this idea as it gives them unique identities and uses, but I doubt DE will do anything of the sort.

I would be interested to see the ability to go over 100% status, where x - 100 is your chance to proc an additional status effect that is not the same as the original one proc'd by 100%. So if you had an I/P/S only weapon with 300% status chance you would proc all 3 each hit.

DE has proven time and time again they are okay with 95% of their mods being useless.

Edited November 14, 2019 by Skaleek

[Silvertap]

14 minutes ago, lukinu_u said:

First of all, don't get me wrong, the nerfs to Condition Overload, Bloodrush, Maiming Strike, etc... were more than welcome and make melee feels much more balanced.

Everything multiplying on top of each other were silly and that's what made melee stupidely overpowered, but that's also what provided build diversity. Everything stacking multiplicatively made almost every mod useful because some "bad mods" were working together with "good mods" which actually forced you to make choices, I will give a few examples :

• Sacrificial Pressure is +137.5% damages, Primed Pressure Point is +165% damages, Condition Overload +120% damages per status on target, beating both previous mods at 2 status and +1800% with all 15 status. Considering you can consistantly get 6 status on target for a +720% damages from the mod, since all 3 mods stack additively, why would you suit Condition Overload and Sacrificial Pressure/Primed Pressure Point for the low 14.4-16.7% increase it provide, compared to x8.2 when you could suit more useful mods ?
   
• Bloodrush gives +60% critical chances per combo level, up to 12 times at 220 hits (achieved easily), so +720% critical chances. Why would you use Sacrificial Steel or Maiming strike for a small +88-150% than only result in a 9.7-17.2% increase compared to the x8.2 bloodrush provide ?
   
• Weeping Wounds give +40% status chance per combo counter stacking 12 time, so +480%, which is actually better than using all 4 status elemental mods than only give +240%.
   

This actually mean the use of multiple mods of the same stat are not worth using and more than encourage hybrid builds over pure crit, pure status or pure damage builds since you get more benefit by stacking crit and status than stacking only crit du to the additive value and too good Bloodrush, Condition Overload and Weeping Wounds.
I think you got my point there, but that's not the only issue. Another big problem is some capped values, which further increase the problem, because instead of discouraging stacking mutliple time of the same value due to diminishing returns, it just prevent you from further increase the said stat because it's capped, and the cap is low enough to be reached easily :

• Status chances is capped at 100%, it's not that bad but due to how strong Weeping Wounds is, with the +480% this mods alone give, you only need a base 18% status chances to reach 100%, which make status above 18% basically useless on melee.
   
• Combo counter being capped at 220 / x12 make any combo gain mods useless since, that amount is reached easily doesn't decrease that fast so you don't really need combo duration exept to counter negative combo duration from Rivens. This mean Body Count, Drifting Contact, Quickening, Relentless Combination are not usable.

This means you have no reason to run a full status build because you have no benefit in going higher than 100% instead of crit, and you have no reason to use combo mods exept for QoL, but you really don't need that.

So basically, you get a ton of free slots from mods that are not worth using and status chance above 18% is useless. Since you have plenty of free mods slots, status weapons won't benefit from more status and crit based weapons will reach 100% status anyways with a single mod, it lead to a very obvious way of playing melee :

• Pick a crit based melee weapon, status chance really doesn't matter.
• Put Condition Overload, Bloodrush and Weeping Wounds which are mandatory.
• Fill the other slots with stuff that stack multiplicatively, so attack speed (both Primed Fury and Berserker since they stack multiplicatively), critical damages, elemetal damages  and range.
• If you have a Riven, use it but avoid the following stats :
  - base damages
  - critical changes (both regular and on slide attack)
  - status chances
  - anything related to combo
  - toxin since you already get it from Primed Fever Strike and generally want to go for gas/corrosive
  - finisher damages (because you know it's just useless)
  Also if you have attack speed on your Riven, it's recommanded to replacing Primed Fury with elemental mod or anything you are missing.

Maybe heavy attack could have been good and encourage modding around them, with charge rate, combo efficiency, etc... but sadly, they are juste a worst version of Magus Lockdown that scrap your combo counter each time you use them, so they are definitely not worth using and modding for...
Also, Gladiator set could give more diveristy since they give pretty decent amount of critical chance per combo, but you can suit these mods on Deconstructor, so it doesn't really work.


Sadly, I don't have much solutions to solve this and and I make this topic to point out the issues I see and finding solution together. 
The only thing I'm sure about right now is allowing status above 100% to encourage using status based weapons over critcal ones and at least get weapon diversity if we don't necessarily get a bunch of diversity in a way of modding.

 

I see your point, and i agree.

 

But now we can use more weapons, i mean there is lot of good melees u can use now, way more then before. 

Also, about the builds, we need to do more experimentations, i mean since the update i can play Mag way more safely because of the block thing. Also some people are already doing builds for finisher. And belive me, maybe it is just a question of time the lots of more builds variaties comes up.

The block thing will give a chance to use the squeshie frames more easily man, it is huge, i'm impressed by that...

[Renegade343]

10 minutes ago, Skaleek said:

They aren't wrong either. Using C/O only often does result in needing 1-2 more hits to kill enemies in the mid-high tier level area 60-100.

But applying status effects can be quick when built for CO, so it's possible that even with the lower initial start that PPP, CO could catch up and kill faster.

14 minutes ago, Skaleek said:

BR and WW? Yeah they are pretty strong, but without + combo duration, it's somewhat difficult keeping your multiplier up at 12x, so yeah, again, the higher floor vs higher ceiling paradigm.

It's a bit easier now, with the combo counter showing your decay progress and increased combo duration to 5.0s. You don't need +combo duration as much now, and if you do need it, not as much +combo duration (Gladiator Rush for crit build's more than enough).

[lukinu_u]

il y a 32 minutes, -AI-Silvertap a dit :

I see your point, and i agree.

 

But now we can use more weapons, i mean there is lot of good melees u can use now, way more then before. 

Also, about the builds, we need to do more experimentations, i mean since the update i can play Mag way more safely because of the block thing. Also some people are already doing builds for finisher. And belive me, maybe it is just a question of time the lots of more builds variaties comes up.

The block thing will give a chance to use the squeshie frames more easily man, it is huge, i'm impressed by that...

New blocking is definitely intestersing and I would love to see some intersting block mods to play with, like blocking radius, increased redirected damages, effect triggering on blocking, etc...

However about other stuff, I really doubt something will change though. The number speak of themselves and unless a very specific stance provide tactical advandage or new comes up, that "melee meta" won't change.
Of course, there are a lot of possibilities and the way mods works allow a bunch of different playstyle and build to be viable, but this one remain the most obvious and effective one.

 

il y a 50 minutes, Skaleek a dit :

They aren't wrong either. Using C/O only often does result in needing 1-2 more hits to kill enemies in the mid-high tier level area 60-100. Also liches are status immune so, CO is definitely not the optimal choice for them. BR and WW? Yeah they are pretty strong, but without + combo duration, it's somewhat difficult keeping your multiplier up at 12x, so yeah, again, the higher floor vs higher ceiling paradigm.

Status immune targets are a thing, but right, but it's rarely worth building your melee for them. You still can, but the benefit you would get from a another mod instead of Weeping Wounds is so low that's it's not worth considering.

[ADDpillz]

100% agree with the OP.

Melee 2.9 meta was overpowered but it at least had min-max build diversity.

We had spin2win, CO stacking,  gunblades, 1 hit KO daggers, typical status/crit hybrids.

Now we have one boring meta:

Just put on bloodrush + speed mods and spam E.

[Skaleek]

1 hour ago, Renegade343 said:

But applying status effects can be quick when built for CO, so it's possible that even with the lower initial start that PPP, CO could catch up and kill faster.

Sure, but thats what i was saying, lower floor, higher ceiling on CO.

1 hour ago, Renegade343 said:

t's a bit easier now, with the combo counter showing your decay progress and increased combo duration to 5.0s. You don't need +combo duration as much now, and if you do need it, not as much +combo duration (Gladiator Rush for crit build's more than enough).

I agree, i rarely use combo duration mods. So my base 5s combo timer is often lost. If a lich picks me up, its gone, if i have to go up an elevator, lost, etc. Gladiator rush is usually more than enough to solve it but also this takes a modslot!

I found myself testing hybrid builds with both C/O and PPP, to see if i could balance the ceiling C/O affords with the initial burst PPP provides. Sort of a middle ground.

[Renegade343]

53 minutes ago, Skaleek said:

Sure, but thats what i was saying, lower floor, higher ceiling on CO.

What I'm trying to say is that the lower floor's relatively insignificant once building for status/hybrid.

[Andele3025]

3 hours ago, lukinu_u said:

 

• Bloodrush gives +60% critical chances per combo level, up to 12 times at 220 hits (achieved easily), so +720% critical chances. Why would you use Sacrificial Steel or Maiming strike for a small +88-150% than only result in a 9.7-17.2% increase compared to the x8.2 bloodrush provide ?

 

Technically, BR and Gladiator mods seem to not care about stack 1/only rack up to 11 times the bonus (so 660% instead of 720%).

 

3 hours ago, lukinu_u said:

• Weeping Wounds give +40% status chance per combo counter stacking 12 time, so +480%, which is actually better than using all 4 status elemental mods than only give +240%.

IMO, weeping is actually fine as its a single mod dedication for a proportionally lower effect as you cant apply more than 1 (well 2 if a attack has a forced proc and you arent weighted towards that element on your weapon) status a hit because the 60% elementals still provide actual modding damage for a lower than regular elementals cost.

3 hours ago, lukinu_u said:

• Combo counter being capped at 220 / x12 make any combo gain mods useless since, that amount is reached easily doesn't decrease that fast so you don't really need combo duration exept to counter negative combo duration from Rivens. This mean Body Count, Drifting Contact, Quickening, Relentless Combination are not usable.

Combo duration mods are still of use to not drop the 12x at a point where interruptions/enemy burst could kill you. Quickening 100% isnt useless as its budget Pfury.

3 hours ago, lukinu_u said:

Maybe heavy attack could have been good and encourage modding around them, with charge rate, combo efficiency, etc... but sadly, they are juste a worst version of Magus Lockdown that scrap your combo counter each time you use them, so they are definitely not worth using and modding for...

It looks worse than it is (both player perspective and in video), tho only if you like the blessed weapon types which does open 3 more cans of worms than it should have. But i do agree Heavy attacks need heavy work (oh idk, maybe being actual charged attacks that trigger the moment you release the button but can keep holding it down for higher damage and range as it drains your combo meter instead of instantly nutting into one delaed attack)

3 hours ago, lukinu_u said:

Also, Gladiator set could give more diveristy since they give pretty decent amount of critical chance per combo, but you can suit these mods on Deconstructor, so it doesn't really work.

Nah, Glad set should stay working via sentinel, tho it should go back to no longer working if the sentinel dies. And for full use it does require normal frame mod slots which in most cases are far more valueable.

3 hours ago, lukinu_u said:

The only thing I'm sure about right now is allowing status above 100% to encourage using status based weapons over critcal ones and at least get weapon diversity if we don't necessarily get a bunch of diversity in a way of modding.

OR:
Revert BR and CO to be multiplicative to total crit and damage. Drop BR to 50%. CO remains additive to itself (so 1.3, then 1.6, then 1.9, etc) and dropped to 30%. Make Meme strike be the Vigilante effect (100% chance on slide attack to increase crit level by 3) which thus applies last and doesnt stack with BR without killing its use on non-crit weapons.
AND ONLY THEN rebalance melee scaling (and gun multishot) after enemy scaling gets its fix.

[Skaleek]

1 hour ago, Renegade343 said:

What I'm trying to say is that the lower floor's relatively insignificant once building for status/hybrid.

Have you tested this? I have and the difference between killing an enemy in 1 hit or two is noticeable to me. I've mostly just been experimenting in kuva lich missions so the level discrepancy can be pretty high. Unless you are priming enemies with like slam, or spores, or even a status weapon (but honestly melee moves so fast, im not sure priming is quick enough). My assumption would be that to prime a large group of mobs you would use something like the ignis wraith.

[Renegade343]

4 minutes ago, Skaleek said:

Have you tested this? I have and the difference between killing an enemy in 1 hit or two is noticeable to me. I've mostly just been experimenting in kuva lich missions so the level discrepancy can be pretty high. Unless you are priming enemies with like slam, or spores, or even a status weapon (but honestly melee moves so fast, im not sure priming is quick enough). My assumption would be that to prime a large group of mobs you would use something like the ignis wraith.

I tested it with a Machete Wraith status/CO build and just raw damage at something like level 140, and difference between the two is rather negligible. Probably even more when you have a Sentinel dishing out the status first for you to go ham on the enemies, giving you damage buff on them right off the bat.

[Skaleek]

Just now, Renegade343 said:

I tested it with a Machete Wraith status/CO build and just raw damage at something like level 140, and difference between the two is rather negligible. Probably even more when you have a Sentinel dishing out the status first for you to go ham on the enemies, giving you damage buff on them right off the bat.

At level 140 i assume you need more than 1 hit to kill the enemies though, as soon as you're in multi-hit territory i would never use PPP over CO. Sentinel priming is an interesting thought, i wonder if i can get sweeper prime up to 100% SC.

[Renegade343]

Just now, Skaleek said:

At level 140 i assume you need more than 1 hit to kill the enemies though, as soon as you're in multi-hit territory i would never use PPP over CO. Sentinel priming is an interesting thought, i wonder if i can get sweeper prime up to 100% SC.

Of course, I wanted to do a quick test on how well CO works now on very high level enemies. And multi-hit is... easier now with a lot more melee weapons.

As for Sentinel priming, I just chucked together a Gas Sweeper Prime build.

[Xzorn]

I get why the multiplier for combo meter is capped but don't see a reason for the number of hits to be capped.

I find the use of Weeping Wounds mostly unchanged. It's always been good for pure physical Bleed weapons and not much else. Sometimes it's a mercy for weapons that have 15% status or so but that's about it. My Riven powered Dark Split Swords come to mind. Melee isn't like shotguns. If you can get ~80% Status on 60/60x2 then take that over using Weeping. Honestly none of my builds have really changed. I'll need to remake some Zaws I used for Bleed weapons but that's about it.

They mostly just made more weapon types viable by normalizing Range and for some reason destroying pure elemental weapons. With a global DPS nerf.

Kinda boring really.

[schilds]

Heavy attacks become more expensive with increased combo counter because they're not meant to be generally efficient with sustained combo counter builds using mods like Blood Rush. The combo counter does not contribute anything by itself, you either use BR or you use heavy attacks. Trying to use both is expensive in terms of valuable mod slots, it's not impossible but requires specific frames/weapons or it isn't efficient.

That means there are main two paths now. Either you're sustaining combo counter with BR, or you're doing regular heavy attacks with a low combo counter.

A lot of people appear to be stuck in the BR crit meta mindset.

[ZarakkiZenn]

On 2019-11-14 at 5:06 PM, schilds said:

Heavy attacks become more expensive with increased combo counter because they're not meant to be generally efficient with sustained combo counter builds using mods like Blood Rush. The combo counter does not contribute anything by itself, you either use BR or you use heavy attacks. Trying to use both is expensive in terms of valuable mod slots, it's not impossible but requires specific frames/weapons or it isn't efficient.

That means there are main two paths now. Either you're sustaining combo counter with BR, or you're doing regular heavy attacks with a low combo counter.

A lot of people appear to be stuck in the BR crit meta mindset.

This. They seem to be forgetting the point of the proposed changes (when they were proposed): fluidity, swapping between gun and melee.

It used to be "all gun" or "all melee", though CO breached that gap slightly, full melee was the way to play melee.

I don't think DE balances above level 100 enemies. Up to that point, you have many builds and many more weapons that will get the job done.

Using CO instead of PPP is a perfect example of the "math lab meta". There are two main builds, the way I see it: quick melee or full melee.

[Otaiken]

Heavy attack builds and heavy attack hybrid builds are a thing now.

But that's a bit too diverse. Choosing whether to use CO or BR or both is where the real diversity lies I suppose.

Also, pretty much all of the forward moving spam combos lost their damage multipliers. If you want big numbers you'll have to go for standing combos and heavy attacks instead. People forget they can just stop for a little while. Spam forward combo your way through enemies towards a big target - stop - shred them and then keep going. I know it's an incredibly advanced strategy by WF's standards but I believe we can all eventually master it.

Edited November 22, 2019 by LocoWithGun