Melee as a close combat skill -> Arena Problems

[Deathbane]

OK, it would seem that it stays quite constant around 28FPS and 45ms so that isn’t an issue.

I tried using the Juggernaut Skill for toe-to-to rather than kiting but I still cant survive.

What I have noticed is that I am being caught via the spikes on the ground, (Mob attack) and that Erasing Strike does much too little damage… Rive is also almost worthless against the larger beasts.

There is a HUGE disparity between running around the various levels to the Arena. I can almost decimate a mob pack with Rive in one swoop whilst levelling but in the Arena it seems to have almost 0 effect. Damage numbers around the 10s rather than high 25s…

It is probably the build coupled with my playstyle. This does lead onto the discussion about non viable builds and cookie-cutters though, hmm.

@Azerko, you are quite welcome to try my Char and build, the comparison between your Arena success and mine would cement the theory. If you are happy to try I can send you my Log-in details, at let you have a run at it?

[Deathbane]

UPDATE:

Ok, after checking it would seem the damage numbers are fairly constant, around 20-30 for Rive and around 90-110 for Erasing Strike.

The main problem is having certain Mobs, which is probably just my bad luck, but as you can see, I just couldn’t kill these three quick enough, using Hammer Throw are Erasing Strike for damage and Shield Rush for a quick getaway.

My stats are slowly improving, I now have 74 DPS but I am only wearing mainly Green equipment.

At least atm I can push towards Wave 2-4 but 170 hahah a long way off.

[Azerko]

I took a few screenshots of my build. Basically, the strategy is to hit enemies with Vengeance for the 36% damage reduction and 100% increased Melee damage then immediately follow up with Shield Rush. Try to keep Vengeance up all the time and alternate between the two skills.

Vengeance

Shield Rush

Passives

Life Leech is the only affix required on your weapon. Just stack as much armor, resist, glancing blow and crit as possible on other pieces of gear. The only thing you really need to look out for with this build is being stun locked. Hope this helps and good luck with your build!

[Sarno]

Just wanted to confirm that we’re aware Rive isn’t in a great spot at the moment.

The team has discussed it, but we haven’t decided what to do with the skill just yet.

[Deathbane]

@Sarno

Just wanted to confirm that we’re aware Rive isn’t in a great spot at the moment.

The team has discussed it, but we haven’t decided what to do with the skill just yet.

That’s going to be a toughie considering that Azerko has managed to reach Wave 170 using basically just two skills…

I have reset my Passives because its only for Gold but I am weary of resetting my Skills due to the loss of points penalty. Just need to fine tune them, although I don’t feel it will bode well for future up to Level 20 F2P players I am getting trashed even though I thought I had invested in a decent skill and equipment set.

Obviously there are other things to consider but if I was a newbie F2P I wouldn’t truthfully be encouraged to buy the full version. I have also tried to craft some new items, and change some stats, but I haven’t yet manged to get past T2 on most things before a Fracture occurs.

Hopefully whatever you decide will create a better balance, and allow for a lot more variety in skills and builds.

[Sarno]

@Deathbane

although I don’t feel it will bode well for future up to Level 20 F2P players I am getting trashed even though I thought I had invested in a decent skill and equipment set.

Are you talking about Arena or Chapter One content?

 

@Deathbane

Obviously there are other things to consider but if I was a newbie F2P I wouldn’t truthfully be encouraged to buy the full version.

I don’t think it’s fair to expect release-level balance at all stages of alpha development.

[Deathbane]

@Sarno

Are you talking about Arena or Chapter One content?

Getting ‘trashed’ is in the arena, sometimes depending on the which mob spawns I can’t even get past Wave 1, the Chapter One levels are sometimes challenging but have little in common with the arena in terms of difficulty. At least with the current build/equipment I have.

Either Chapter One is too easy or the Arena is too difficult, which can’t be true if some players can hit wave 170 with just two main skills.

@Sarno

I don’t think it’s fair to expect release-level balance at all stages of alpha development.

Of course not, but the discussion should be had, or would you guys just prefer that Alpha players just told you you’re doing a great job and keep it up!

If we follow that discussion, then some skills are already ‘obsolete’ and will remain so into the final version. Unless you are aiming at a two skill situation whereas some skills are better suited to the Arena, and that begs the question what is your ‘end game’ vision?

For example ‘Rallying Block’ in the Sentinel Passives, I thought, wow a 25% HP booster on a block, which given enough of a block % could be a meaningful survival skill, but my current experience is that I am more likely to get a Fracture at 10% than a HP boost from a block at 25% chance.

Likewise with the ‘Peltast’ skill, it is great for Chapter One if you want to go heavy on defence (Equipment) and use that as an offence skill but in the arena it just doesn’t seem to be worthwhile, I have tried kiting the mobs but the ‘Hammer Throw’ just didn’t make an indent on their HP, ok for clearing trash maybe. but for the larger Mobs, that can close the gap (too quickly in my opinion) you might get two or three hammers off before you have to run again. At maybe 50HP a throw against a Mob that seems to have 1K + HP that is a long and tedious task.

I have the feeling that I am most vulnerable when I turn around to run away or to make some distance away from the mobs, and if I am facing 3 Large Mobs, then I seem to get 2-3 hitted, with the slow/stun mechanics, that is even a greater possibility especially if you have mobs that duplicate themselves with the same abilities. So I am guessing Dodge/Block only work from the front…

Now I am at the point of having to re-adjust my build in order to survive and advance in the Arena, throwing away my original concept which worked quite well in the Chapter levels and I am only at Level 25. If f2P players can only advance up to level 20 and therefore can’t unlock the skills needed or which are most useful in the Arena, they will, alike myself become disgruntled or disillusioned and possibly not become a B2P player.

Of coursed, it’s just my personal opinion, and food for discussion, but without such feedback how are you going to understand what or how the players think or feel?

[Sarno]

@Deathbane

Either Chapter One is too easy or the Arena is too difficult, which can’t be true if some players can hit wave 170 with just two main skills.

Chapter One is balanced around being the start of the game - what new players first experience. The Arena is designed to be a temporary stand in for end-game content which hasn’t been developed yet. They’re different content with different goals.

 

@Deathbane

I don’t think it’s fair to expect release-level balance at all stages of alpha development.

Of course not, but the discussion should be had, or would you guys just prefer that Alpha players just told you you’re doing a great job and keep it up!

That’s not a fair response. Nobody is asking you to refrain from giving critical feedback.

In the pre-alpha demos we had a Passive Grid system we spent a great deal of time designing and iterating upon. During the pre-alpha we got feedback from players saying that the system wasn’t intuitive, and that one of the two types of node points didn’t feel rewarding. That was critical feedback - we listened to it, acted on it, and now we’ve the current Mastery system instead. The game is better because of that feedback and that change.

If we’d spent 150 hours carefully fine-tuning each of the nodes in the Passive Grid, then removed it entirely, other areas of the game would’ve had 150 hours less development time invested into them. Imagine if Arena was available but Chapter One was not.

That’s the point I’m trying to get across. We absolutely want critical feedback - we didn’t spend a year working on and releasing free pre-alpha demos prior to our KickStarter for no reason. We did it precisely to receive feedback that forced us as a team to question our ideas, to improve what wasn’t good enough, and to consider other points of view. We just aren’t ready to try to get the numbers perfect when so much around them will change.

 

@Deathbane

If we follow that discussion, then some skills are already ‘obsolete’ and will remain so into the final version.

We’ll be dedicating a great deal of time during the beta to balancing skills. Skill balance will be more of a priority when all of the skills - and more of the content you use them in - is available. Skill balance is sensitive to various factors - how good is gear at level 10, 30, 50? At release all skills will have specialization trees, low-level itemization will be more balanced, and players will be trading with each other. You can’t balance around what isn’t there.

You can read about the various stages of development in this Developer Blog;

Pre-Alpha, Alpha, Beta, Release Candidate, What’s the Difference?

Hi guys, Mike from Eleventh Hour Games back again to talk about our development cycle and what each phase means for you as a player and a backer as we head into our Kickstarter campaign. The specific timelines for the alpha, closed beta and open beta are very loose right now and we will release more detailed info about when we will hit these milestones later. We plan to be very communicative with our community throughout the entire process. Currently, Last Epoch is in Pre-Alpha. This means that…

 

@Deathbane

If f2P players can only advance up to level 20 and therefore can’t unlock the skills needed or which are most useful in the Arena, they will, alike myself become disgruntled or disillusioned and possibly not become a B2P player.

We do not currently plan to have Arena available at release.

The leveling experience will comprise of more than ten chapters - with quests - after which you’ll be able to start engaging with the endgame content outlined on this page.

I looked at the number of months between the game starting development and today, and between today and our currently scheduled release date. The game is closer to not having been started than it is to being released. That’s how early in development it is.

I sincerely appreciate you getting involved this early - being willing to spend time giving us feedback, being willing to support us financially, and being active on our forums. I just wish you’d try to view what’s currently available in context of what else is planned.

[Deathbane]

Well I almost had him this time… I have no idea why this particular Mob seems to be so difficult, but it shouldn’t cause me so much trouble at Wave 2… Those damn spikes that he sends out are a real pain, I tried to kite him but I have to admit, sometimes I don’t manage to turn around and throw hammers correctly, they miss… Yet again, I manage to get possibly two or three on target before I have to move again,

I use Ephemeral Stance due to my skills being mainly Physical or Void, whereas Juggernaut slows me down too much.

Hopefully, later today I can sort out a Video and post it so that I can receive some feedback, maybe I am just doing i all wrong, If I have time I will try to get it sorted out. I feel it would be very useful.

[Deathbane]

Quick Update: Somehow I managed to get to almost completing level 15. Just a few tweaks and points placed in other areas seem to have made some difference, I am still having to run around (kite) the end mob per wave for a long time though, possibly once I also manage to get to above level 35 it might become a lot easier.

[Deathbane]

@Sarno

I sincerely appreciate you getting involved this early - being willing to spend time giving us feedback, being willing to support us financially, and being active on our forums. I just wish you’d try to view what’s currently available in context of what else is planned.

Thanks, I am also hoping that the end game will be a massive success, and I will try to include positive feedback where possible or needed. Lots of things could change and skills tweaked, let’s hope that for once, you guys can produce a game that has MANY different character builds that are viable and able to sustain a high level of gameplay rather than the same-old-same-old cookie cutters.

Also thank you for your replies. I am still testing and tweaking the Char myself too.

[Deathbane]

And just to show that I am not all doom and gloom…

Whilst I was sorting out my char and tweaking stuff like equipment, I noticed something…

You see, I had just considered the Char graphic to be Uni-Sex, awaiting the final polish until…

I changed out her ( blush) Armor…

So now there we have it, due to some starnge reason, I have named a Female char ‘Deathbane’ the first one after a long line of successive male chars…

Must be a sign of the times or I am really becoming very very forgetful…

[warath]

Not sure what gear or skills you’re using with erasing strike, but I find it insanely powerful, my build crits for 30,000 with erasing strike. Crit strike dmg is very powerful stat. I haven’t played much in a month, but I just tested my build which is glass cannon with life steal build and its still viable in arena, cleared it with relative ease. I use vengence and erasing strike and put points into void knight for life steal and dmg then sentinel tree for crit chance and crit strike dmg. My character is lv71 so that probably helps alot with all those extra skill points.

There are always builds that are weak at low lv but really shine once you get all skill points assigned. I think erasing strike is one of those skills.

[Valen]

I really don’t know what everyone is complaining about. I have been playing summoner and fire mage exclusively till I read this post so I decided to try a solo melee toon for myself. Hit wave 100 on my first attempt before I died to some stupid void burst wombo combo, but that also happens on my other toons and actually a lot faster if i don’t pay attention.

You just need to pick a properly tanky build, grab a life leech weapon (or craft one, they are not rare at all) and max armor/def gear whereever you can find, then see if you can find good offensive prefixes. Sure the clearspeed was not tier 1, but thats because I had 0 gear and went 100% tanky with nodes to be on the save side. I could properly increase the dmg by 200-500% if I was willing to forgo some survival and actually pay attnetion to boss mechanics as opposed to mindlessly mashing Q-W 24/7. And it’s only boss clearpseed thats lackluster anyway, aoe you evaporate evrth in your way. It is actually a much smoother experience as a tanky melee getting hit for 5-40 dmg as opposed to 20-200 dmg like i get hit on my sorcerer the moment I fail kiting.

Y’all need to learn how to build defensively!

[Deathbane]

@Warath, thanks for the reply, Erasing Strike is also great when I am running through Chapter 1 and I have very little problems completing all the areas / Boss fights. Since the Arena won’t be part of the initial release it’s a mute point really.

@Valen, I hope you aren’t a snowflake because I don’t know how to reply nicely so I’ll have to reply bluntly and hope you won’t take offence:

Your post adds absolutely 0 value, all I read is ‘look at me and how good I am!’ and it would seem that you haven’t fully read or understood the previous posts.

Without ‘details’ I can’t learn or compare your post to my problem. What is a ‘tanky’ build in your opinion? ‘Just simply find the right gear’, can you post what gear you managed to find, and exactly which stats you have, also which Skills and passives did you choose? What level are you at?

I apologise for the amount of pictures but I don’t see how else to offer the information without writing too much.

Currently I also have 17% Life leech on my Sword (I only managed to achieve T2 because it Fractured… )

I managed to achieve Wave 15 (and was slightly unlucky at that) with this build, and doing a lot of wave boss kiting, which in my opinion is really bad for a Melee char or build, but I just can’t go toe-to-toe because the spikes or stun effects are too strong, I die too quickly, Rive doesn’t deal enough damage or hit often enough to make life-leech useful, and Erasing Strike even at 100% extra damage just doesn’t cut it for the mana it consumes.

If I use Shield Rush, deal damage, go through the mob, turn around, Shield rush, deal damage move through the mob (r & r) I can whittle the Wave boss down, the problem is moving away from the mob , I am unlucky with the spike attack or slow aura it ends in death.

Lastly, the whole point of this thread was to seek advice and to make the Devs aware of this problem. I have already re-skilled and that cost me some Skill points, I have had to change my equipment which cost me shards (and frustration to be honest) and if I could find a better sword and the shards to upgrade it I could probably do better.

Is that the Devs wish though, I am guessing your build is slightly different to mine, are some builds going to be more viable than others? Are we heading for @cookie-cutter builds?

The Arena is just a play area, however, it is also a great place to test builds and skill sets, it’s not just about how far I can go, reaching Wave 200 isn’t a milestone for me, it is all about how the game will be perceived, is there enough variety and depth to capture a new audience and grab new players? Does this game offer that something extra? Is the crafting experience a positive one, Can I fine tune my char to what I want and still be successful?

Please post more details and allow others to easier understand the differences and see what could be wrong or needs to be changed!

Sorry for the long post, unfortunately I don’t have a potato!

[Valen]

No offense taken. What I would go for in your case is Juggernaut stance (40% dmg reduction), and vengeance for multiplicatively 30% and 36% reduced dmg taken, which is a 73% dmg reduction for weaving in an additional skill occasionally, that also boosts your dmg by 100% for the next attack. The amount of life leech on your weapon is not important, every strike should instantly heal you back to full health even at 10-12%. Your block chance is very good, but your armor is too low. You want 700++. Forgo the added dmg and stun resistance node (it is not very good anyway until later in the game to dodge stunlock), max % armor and str instead and grab 5 points in Juggernaut for the bonus armor. Also having the sentinel passive helps.

It doesn’t really matter if you use erasing strike or shield rush, but in both cases you want mana efficiency nodes first and then pick the best damage nodes for your build. You don’t want to use rive or vengeance or any of those pesky fillers more than absolutely necessary, which is also why I find attack speed on melee builds to be rather lackluster. Also, I would specialise in either shield rush or erasing strike and master one of them, since each compete for a single resource and require different playstyles. Shield rush requires you to charge through mobs, use a filler, then charge again, rinse and repeat, whereas erasing strike you really want to group up mobs for a second, slaughter all of them in a quick combo and then deal with the bosses that remain standing buy just outleeching them.

As for stats: Just grab added armor and added health where your can. I personally find those the best defensive stats since we get so much bonus on any added armor and health helps both vs stuns and just to sponge attacks. Offensively crit chance and crit mult are, as usuall, king. Flat dmg or % increased phys dmg on weapons also goes a long way.
But I really think all your problems are coming from not using juggernaut stance and vengeance. Once you reduce your incoming damage by a good three quarters you will find the arena far less threatening.

[Deathbane]

@Vallen, firstly thanks for not being offended and secondly thanks for the more detailed reply.

Although my inner me says that it shouldn’t be like this, you are probably correct. I haven’t yet worked out how you get the 700+ Armor without forgoing a LOT of other stats, or having to drop in items that aren’t always BiS… like also having Minion dodge or something non useful.

Swapping out the Ephemeral Stance for Juggernaut seems the best idea for now. I really don’t want to go down a single path otherwise we start to have things that are obsolete and basically just place holders.

I am unsure of the underlying maths (theory crafting) between Might and Juggernaut because I haven’t worked out the value of +125 Armor versus 75% more Armor = the % added via the passive (currently at 28%) , I guess you could take both because it would negate the minus 10% of damage, depending on where the 10% was reduced, at source or actual value.

Include the Sentinel added flat 30% I don’t think the Dev design was for players to ALWAYS just simply take both, otherwise it would just be:

Steel Agis 10/10 + Might 15/15 and Juggernaut 5/5 (30 points) as standard.

I will also look into swapping out something for Vengeance, which if we are going for a ‘Tanky’ build would be the Hammer Throw and just use Shield Rush as a main attack with Rive/Erasing Strike to cover trash mob groups.

I am considering the long term strategy since the penalty for re-skilling is quite severe. It would be ideal to swap between Vengeance and Hammer Throw depending on the situation. Maybe a Boss fight with Vengeance and going through the chapters with Hammer throw.

I will try it out later and post the results.

(Maybe this thread could be moved to the Knight thread as it would serve as some good background knowledge for future newbies.) title: Sentinel Knight and the Arena build.

[Valen]

Well, as someone who has been playing ARPGS since D1 came out, I can say that there are mostly two melee approaches to ever be succesful in endgame:

1. Be so tanky that NOTHING can kill you and then scaleup your dmg from that point or
2. Be CC immune and just tanky enouh that nothing in the game can oneshot you with instant life leech so you can insant heal full after every dmg taken.
   Since CC immunity is not a thing yet option 1 is the only really viable one. The alternative is, that you make everything viable, but then anyone who actually goes to the lengths of playing a stacked build will steamroll all content and quickly grow bored. It is always a tradeoff.

Perfect balance is not achieveable and has never existed in the history of ARPGs and there are always with no exceptions skills that are inferior to others and not used except for people who want a special challenge, then there’s a huge patch and evrth is reshuffled. Here’s a screen of my current stats:

I simply stacked flat or % armor on all the gear I could find.

[Deathbane]

I see…

Hmm so the first Passive Tree has a choice of four, you can choose between relentless and Might.

I am still trying out the new build. I noticed you don’t have any Dodge , normally Dodge is better than Block because you don’t take any damage when you Dodge an attack.

It’s not so much Balance as available choices, the Arena probably skews that due to the nature of it, running the different Chapter One areas I would prefer to have a beefed out Hammer Throw since it enables you to melt enemies before they even get to you.

Let me see what impression the changes I have made have on my Arena score. I might even be able to pick up some good equipment.

Quick Edit: Having so much Dodge goes against Vengeance, since I might not take a hit within the two second cooldown, (I dodge too much) so I am going to try just Juggernaut and still use Hammer Throw, mainly because atm Rive deals so little damage that I am toe-to-toeing for 5minutes with the Wave Boss… tedious tedious… (and that is with throwing in a few Shield Rushes and Erasing Strikes when I have the mana etc.)

After just completing up to Wave 5, I am already bored, there is almost no challenge or dynamic, perhaps I should wait for the next patch update,