The Game Is Progressing Too Quickly for 2H to Keep Up

Actually, this title is a bit inaccurate. I should say that the game is progressing too quickly for close combat classes to keep up. This means 2H melee and 1H melee. Though they suffer less than melee, a few mage builds are falling behind as well...such as flamethrower and peculiar edge cases of mage builds (like G's). I just put 2H in the title because I feel it is the class that's falling behind the most, and I'll be giving it special attention in this post.

I'm writing this post right now because I'm legitimately concerned about how the game has progressed -- particularly from Tai Ming to The Desert. Not too long ago, someone posted on the Steam Forums about enemies kind of getting insane because there's a "bullet-hell-ish" atmosphere that's created where there's a lot of chaos and very little reward for the mechanics the game teaches you early on...and he said that such an atmosphere makes the game unenjoyable. I got defensive and basically said he was wrong in a typical rant. But after playing a bit more, I think he might be somewhat correct -- specifically for the last two sections of enemies (more so The Desert than Tai Ming). I'm afraid of the game continuing down the path that it appears to be on right now. If enemies continue to get more chaotic than they currently are, I think that will legitimately reduce enjoyment for many players.

So for the general structure... I think I'll address things in this order: 1) The problem with enemies, 2) The reason mages can thrive, and 3) The reason melee desperately needs buffs. And sadly...I'll have to split this into 3 comments.


Concerns with the Current Enemies

So how exactly is the game "progressing too quickly for other classes to keep up"? I'll try to layout the general progression of the game.

The game starts out simple. All early enemies (bees, rabbys, slimes) are stunnable. And any form of chain attacking can be stopped by shielding. As the game progresses, some unstunnable enemies appear. However, you're generally significantly rewarded for pguarding: You can reflect projectiles; you can interrupt boars and elite bots; you can pause enemies' attacks. The shield remains a major aspect of the game. However, as the game progresses, this goes away...and a lot of things change that leave melee without a lot of options.

First, the terrain which the player is given to traverse decreases. Bombs block the way; projectiles become hectic; empowered season mages get very dodgy and release special attacks that block your movement; hazards such as blizzards and bats deal heavy damage damage, slow you down, and stunlock you if you're shielding; things like poison and fire do major damage and block off your motion. All of these are enormous problems for melee, but they're hardly any problem at all for mages. Mages can attack anything from afar, with some attacks being auto-aiming...and all their attacks are incredibly powerful. Melee players, however, have to close the distance to do damage...this means careful positioning/moving. Late game, this is incredibly difficult.

The desert is a major culprit of this. Thorns are being launched everywhere, making it hard to move. Solems are also shooting beams at you. And then you have small slimes coming after you that are hard to see because they often blend in with the background or suddenly appear from behind a solem. There's also the ravens that can cause mini bats to appear. There are so many threats that melee has to pay attention to and rush after, but it's so hard to move around safely. Meanwhile, mages can 1-3 shot any enemy present from afar. Before the recent update, melee was almost entirely unviable. I legitimately did not enjoy the desert at all before the update (except for Marino S). With the recent update, melee became somewhat more survivable, but it's still unviable.

Second, the ability to stun enemies loses significance over time. Most Tai Ming enemies cannot be stunned. This makes all the gimmicks with 2H melee (interrupts, smash, etc.) completely meaningless. It also decreases the openings melee has to attack and consequently decreases the dps that melee can do. Stunning also lacks significance in the desert. Solems can't be stunned with attacks. And although slimes and cacuctes can be stunned, they're rather difficult to reach while maneuvering through the chaos that is the desert. Honestly, the terrain control that enemies have (especially beams and thorns), makes the ability to stun enemies fairly unnoticeable.

Third, shielding and even pguarding starts to lose meaning over time. This is particularly the case in places like Tai Ming and The Desert. In Tai Ming, the shield is hardly useful. You don't stun anything. And you hardly stop any attacks. You can slow statues or cause worms to come up by pguarding. But it's not that meaningful and is often difficult to do with all the chaos going on in the room (bombs, jank echoes, etc.). Oftentimes you can just dodge the statue and whack/cast, especially if you use ice magic. As for the worm, you can just dodge it. There's hardly a difference between dodging and pguarding. If you're shielding, you're likely doing it only to avoid damage, and not as anything truly offensive. Moreover, enemies break your shield rather quickly.

The same pretty much goes for The Desert. Orange slimes cannot be stopped by regular shielding. They can only be stopped by pguarding, which is hard to do in all the chaos. This makes it incredibly easy for them to break your shield. Solems break your shield if they hit you with a beam. Pguarding a thorn is hard to do in all the chaos; and if it hits a cactus, it only causes even more thorns to appear more quickly. Although ravens can be stunned by shielding, they generally don't stay on the ground long enough for melee to kill easily.

Enemies easily break your shield in Tai Ming and The Desert, and yet melee is rendered completely helpless once their shield is broken in these environments. Mages are fine with or without a shield.

Fourth, melee pales in comparison to mages in damage. This is a matter of fact once gold and arguably even when silver is unlocked. Things like meteor and ice-magic+static can do insane damage with just a single pguard. This has less to do with issues in the game's mechanics...it has more to do with how the skills are now.

Those are the major problems with enemies right now. And all of these problems make the fourth issue -- melee's lack of damage -- even more noticeable. Before I move onto some of the buffs melee can get, let me talk about mages briefly, and how they're so powerful in the game. This is going to be some copy-paste from my "Insect Swarm" post. So if you've already seen my comments on why mages are so strong, you can skip the first two (2) paragraphs.
 
The Reason Mages Can Thrive
Believe it or not, most other spells in the game are incredibly powerful. They are strong enough to hold their own at low charge. And shortly after silver is unlocked, they create and maintain the ability to one-shot enemies or just kill them within a second or two. If you choose your build wisely, two things happen: 1) You can cast for a pseudo-infinite period of time. What does "pseudo infinite" mean? It means you can clear a Tai Ming Arcade Room by casting repeatedly, but be nowhere close to running out of EP. And 2) You can kill almost any enemy "instantaneously". Many spells can one-shot echoes of madness and even elite statues. Even if a spell doesn't one shot these enemies, another quick cast or a whack of the sword can finish the enemy off. Elite echoes can be killed before they finish their teleportation phase, usually within 3 or 4 teleportations. And the collateral often means at least half of the rest of an arcade room is finished off in the process. The only spells that aren't capable of such feats on their own are ice spells (Nova and Spike), but they can accomplish similar or even greater feats when combo'd with static touch.

So we know the two things that mage spells can do. But what makes this possible? Well that is another set of two things: 1) Snap Cast, Manaburn, and Efficient Counter are extremely powerful, especially when meshed with Empower, Atk Potion, and a couple other talents depending on the build. Those first 3 talents are the most important, but the other guys towards the end are still somewhat significant factors. Efficient counter (sometimes combo'd with the other shield ability) can give you pseudo-infinite EP. This makes it very safe and easy to take advantage of manaburn. At the same time, snap cast gives you extra dps as well. With everything put together, mages can out damage the previously nerfed focus canceling by perhaps at least double or triple the amount. AT. LEAST. And it's incredibly safe too. Now I don't think this needs to be nerfed for a few reasons. I think that melee should instead get buffed. More on that in a bit... 2) Pretty much all the spells deal "burst" damage. By this I mean that virtually all the power of a spell is released soon after its cast. Fireball does one hit...as do meteor and earth spike. In a sense, Ice magic does one hit. Chained lightening takes multiple hits but can be cast while another chained lightening is active. All of these spells do a lot of damage in a short time period. Flamethrower technically has a damage-over-time aspect to it, but it does so much damage that it may as well be looped in with the other spells. The major benefit of this "bursting power" is that when fused with fact #1, you can pretty much kill major threats whenever you want. And killing major threats is important for calming down any kind of arcade room or story spawn room. In arcade, instantly killing major threats will also instantly create a sense of release and a greater sense of ease for the rest of the room.

I think it's hard to understand how incredibly powerful mages are unless you play with the right builds. Some people think that getting crazy damage bonuses for pguarding makes sense because you aren't playing as safely. But I strongly disagree with this. Right now, mage classes get rewarded more than melee for pguarding. This is because melee generally has to walk up and hit an enemy to get the benefit of a pguard...and usually this benefit is only an interrupt (if the enemy is interruptable) or a simple quick charge to silver (which a mage gets anyway). Oftentimes for melee, these pguards will be with the enemies they're fighting up close -- maybe an echo or a solem or something. So they have to be heavily in the battlefield, often close to the enemies that do the most intimidating amounts of damage. Mages do not have these risks. As long as you can pguard anything in the room, you basically have a free one-shot kill. You can pguard a projectile from an enemy, quickly run away, and snap cast. You can pguard a melee attack and quickly snap cast. You can safely pguard an isolated barrel rolling around the room and snap cast. You can run out of your way to pguard a thorn from a cacute, then move out of line-range of the cacute (so that you won't take damage) and proceed to do incredible damage to whichever enemy you choose. If you have gold earth spike on, you're stunning enemies as well! If you have ice, you're freezing enemies and getting crits. The list goes on! And there's no way of nerfing this because in every area there is an enemy that will attack you -- and at least one of those enemies will be easy to do a pguard-into-immediate-snap-cast-FROM-RANGE with. What's more, mages often are able to use amazingly useful utilities such as stasis, because they really only need one full spell on them. Melee does not have this freedom since it usually relies on shadow clone or berzerk to gather what little dps it has (along with empower and blink). Oftentimes, it even may need barrier since it has to be in the center of the battlefield more. Finally, mages will generally have access to more EP or more EP regen, making the use of stasis less costly. Stasis is more so a luxury of mages, who already have amazing power.

So do I think mages need a nerf? I used to think so...but I don't anymore because of how the game has progressed. The reason mages are so strong is that they can do immense damage from afar without much effort and without losing much EP. But if mages weren't OP, I don't think any class would be reasonably viable end game. This is because right now, bursting is the only truly viable thing in the game. Strategy ain't so useful anymore. What makes maging so powerful is that they can quickly burst-kill any major threat in the room and cast for a pseudo-infinite period of time. The way the game is, this is required and is the only way to survive. Enemies and their hazards are too chaotic for close combat to be viable, especially in Tai Ming and The Desert. Pguarding is no longer significantly rewarding melee players, nor is it very useful for stopping enemies in their tracks. And the shield gets broken fairly easily too. And yes, I know the desert gives significant damage rewards for pguarding a thorn or a laser beam. However, these are incredibly difficult things to do. And the sad thing is...they aren't always worth the risk. If you miss the solem beam pguard, you lose your shield...which is the item that melee relies on to accomplish anything late game (shield canceling, reflecting, blocking damage, etc.). As for cacutes, they're often circling around you if you're melee. You don't have as much control over where you can fight your enemies. And when you do pguard the attack and land a hit, cacutes only get more aggressive.

The game has kind of followed a "We only reward bursting" logic recently as well. When I complained about the desert enemies, the main changes were pguards that roughly cut off half of an enemy's HP. While I did appreciate that, it didn't truly remove the problems with the enemies. In fact, it introduced a new problem (solems breaking shield). All of the tons of chaos in the room still remained: You can't take advantage of pguarding or deal any kind of melee damage if a beam is already following you around. And the thorns are still difficult to keep track of and properly reflect. So really...it's only safe to pguard while no beams are active...and even then it's hard to do. The desert basically stayed the same, but it gave melee one or two means of doing damage. Basically, melee becomes a mini-mage by using its shield from a distance to deal burst damage; and that's mostly all it can do to be safe and to deal meaningful damage safely. And because this reward is for pgaurding in general, mages can do it too. (So why even play melee?) The chaos still remains. The Season Mages also got similar treatment. Season mages are incredibly annoying and difficult to handle for melee under certain circumstances. So reflected projectile damage got a buff. If you're melee, it's your most viable option for handling mages -- especially empowered mages. (For the record, I do think one-shotting mages makes sense within ToS. They're like more annoying lanterns and are not late-game enemies.) Overall, the chaos problems still remain. BUT: If you can just kill an enemy really quickly with some reflect damage, then the problem goes away, right? No. And that isn't me trying to mock the game design. I like having pguard damage. However, it doesn't decrease the gap in rewards that mages get compared to melee. And it feels like just getting some burst-like pguard projectile damage is the only thing that's really been provided for fixes. Even then, performing well with melee is incredibly difficult. You should not need the skills of Pydoyks or the skills of me (on a good day, not an average day) to be able to thrive in the desert with melee.

I feel like the game is starting to paint itself into a corner. Enemies are too difficult to handle. But mages can burst them. And instead of reworking an enemy or a class, some workaround gets provided that is most likely restricted in some way to a pguard. Mages have burst damage, so that can handle the crazy enemies. Pguards can do burst damage, so hopefully melee can survive more. Even back when people were complaining about elite bots and boars. The solution to the problem was using a melee interrupt after a pguard. And now, Pydoyks has recently been pushing for pguard-stepping (quickly "dashing" immediately out of a pguard) as a solution to jank problems that can occur where you still get screwed by attacks while pguarding. Don't get me wrong. These ideas are awesome. I especially loved the melee interrupt idea. But if the core problems don't truly get addressed, and if only side solutions via pguards are provided, then the skill required to accomplish AVERAGE things only increases. When interrupts got introduced, the game got significantly easier for people like @Chaldo and myself. But the game difficulty didn't change at all for regular players. And right now, pguarding can't even save Chaldo and myself late game. The desert is still incredibly difficult. And if this kind of high-chaos atmosphere continues to flourish as the game reaches its end, life will only get worse. And who can imagine what arcade will be like?
 
Melee Desperately Needs Buffs... Or Does It?
I know I said melee needs buffs right now. But I think that's very much up in the air. Obviously, the easy solution is to continue to support the bursting damage rule: If an enemy is too insane, just make it possible to burst-kill him. By this logic, because melee is so much more difficult to use than mage (and because right now it gets less rewarded than mages do for using melee-like tactics such as pguarding), melee should do much more damage. For example: Whirlslash is much harder to use than meteor. This is especially the case since knockback and stun are hardly meaningful late game. Flamethrower is given high dps even though it allows movement while dealing damage. Why not give whirlslash the same treatment, but with the greater damage it deserves? Basically, if mages can one shot enemies after a pguard, melee skills should be given enough power to one-shot or 2-shot any buff enemy (eg. echoes and solems) at full charge.

But does that make sense? Following this path of logic could just make all the game's problems worse: Enemies still remain broken; noobish and even average players still remain unable to handle most of the late game enemies; all of the enemies' attacks and mechanics are made meaningless because all that matters is burst damage. Now don't get me wrong, I do think melee should get some buffs. For instance, titan's throw is much harder to use than meteor. (I won't say how in this post. This guy is getting too long already.) Thus, it should do more damage than meteor, which in turn does more damage than earth spike for being a more difficult spell. But...even though I legitimately think melee could use a few buffs here and there, I do think that it would make more sense to rework enemies and to rework rewards. Maybe this would help guide the extent to which melee should be buffed. I'll close this post out with a few approaches that I think are possible.

1) Make 2H what it's truly intended to be. 2H is supposed to be a cool class that does major damage and major stunning/knockback but is a bit sluggish. Unfortunately, in the late game, 2H melee pretty much only keeps the sluggish aspect and not so much anything else. Melee gets weak and many major threats become unstunnable. The power of knocking back and interrupting enemies needs to be kept throughout the game. Change the currently uninterruptable enemies so that they are interruptable and "knockbackable" by 2H melee only. This gives people an actual reason to play 2H melee. Maybe only allow certain gold charge skills to accomplish this. It should be possible to launch any enemy with "SMASH" -- at the very least allow this after a pguard. Additionally, allow interrupts from pguards to interrupt these huge, buff enemies (eg yetis, season mages, statues) only if the counterattack comes from a 2H weapon. (And yes, I mean stunning even elite echoes of madness, elite statues, and elite solems.) This recreates the balances that were created early game: 1H can skillfully cancel into basically anything, 2H can deal hard damage while stunning and/or knocking back enemies, and mages can harm enemies from afar. 2H is supposed to be the heavy hitting class. So at some point it will need some real damage buffs. Note that I don't think any current bosses need any special stunning treatment from melee.

2) It's okay to give melee players defense. Chaldo and I whined about melee gear for awhile, and then the barbarian sash came to the game along with a few other items...but there was like no defense. Now I loved this add-on, and it did help 2H melee's viability in arcade (at least while focus canceling was legal). However, melee is not some incredible, insanely threatening, OP class that becomes godlike when you give it a little attack power. Melee still has to combo. And most importantly, melee still has to run into the fray. Melee can't attack from afar. And when it does (throw/smash), it's incredibly vulnerable and often sacrifices some form of dps (eg. the weapon itself). For instance, in the current desert, there is so much chaos going on that you're likely to get hit several times as melee before you land a single hit yourself. Close combat classes inherently need more defense so that they can survive longer. I think it would be quite fair to add the attack stat of the barbarian strap to the spinsect armor. Now this might change if melee gets more damage. There are various ways to rebalance the ways melee gets damage and defense... But melee definitely needs a sizeable amount of defense to be treated fairly. And this defense should accompany the atk buffs.

3) Give 1H cooler canceling abilities. Like I said earlier, I focused most of this post towards 2H, but I do think everything "close-combat-like" needs some attention. What makes 1H so special is the ability to land attacks and be able to dodge or react quickly. Instead of being safe attacking from afar, it's supposed to "be safe attacking up close". Of course, that's never a real thing because up close is dangerous. But 1H could use some cool canceling mechanics on more than just piercing dash. At the very least, it could be given minimal end lag on all of its abilities. Late game, this becomes incredibly important in order to deal damage while avoiding taking damage. Bear in mind that 1H will not be having the stunning or knockback abilities of 2H (at least not under the ideas I'm giving), so it does need some degrees of freedom in combat and motion.

4) Buff Flamethrower. I actually memed a lot in the discord about flamethrower being stupidly easy. My recent experiences have changed my mind. I still think flamethrower is incredibly easy early and mid game. However, because it is close combat, flamethrower runs into a lot of the issues that melee does late game (Tai Ming, Desert...). Even so, these problems are not as serious since flamethrower has some good damage and allows the player to move around while dealing dps. Some kind of buff to flamethrower would make it a more viable spell in the late game.

5) Rework the enemies. This is a hard one. This really depends on the kind of game that the developers are after, and how much of a concern is given to the average player base. How I see it, the game really only favors high skill. It's not as apparent in story until you try to "deathlessly" grind in hardmode without barrier or health potions. It's incredibly apparent in arcade mode, where special combos mixed with tons of pguarding is necessary simply to survive and maybe to do half-decent damage. This is really a question of how high the average skill ceiling should be. I've had my rants about a few enemies, but I think most of them are generally okay -- minus a few possible fixes here and there. Most of my gripes are with enemy-spawning enemies (hives, rift crystals), the fae boss, empowered season mages, and echoes of madness -- that's off the top of my head. I do think that the desert enemies altogether have an insane amount of synergy that makes things unfair. I still die there frequently as melee while trying to grind. Things are better than they used to be...but they aren't necessarily perfect. Other than that, most things are okay...probably. If enemy issues do get addressed, and if the melee classes are specialized in a significant way (whether by the means I suggested or by other means), then I think the game would be much more enjoyable and more open to other players.

6) Remember to reward shielding. I suppose it's up for debate how significant regular shielding should be on the battlefield. But it should never become insignificant. Pguards especially should never become insignificant. The skillful mechanics that are taught early game truly need to be rewarded all the way through to the late game.

7) Rework mages in the end. I think this is the lowest of priorities. But I do think that mages probably do too much damage right now. I can't tell if it's because the enemies are too crazy or if it's because melee is too underpowered or if it's because of something else. It's also possible that they don't need to be nerfed at all. Idk. It's likely a bit too hard to tell whether or not mages need nerfing right now. However, some damage reworking should be considered in the future after enemies and the melee classes are reworked (assuming they are).

Wrap Up
I think that's basically all I have to say. Basically, I think the enemies in the game right now might be getting a little bit out of hand. They're rewarding players less and less for the skillful mechanics that are taught early game, and they're more and more requiring only special classes to be used (ie. bursting mage classes). All the while, they're creating a storm of chaos in which it is incredibly difficult to move around or deal any kind of close-combat damage safely. I believe changes should be made to the enemies and to the individual classes that not only make the game more fair, but also make the classes more enjoyable and more meaningful. My ideas don't necessarily have to be implemented, but something should probably be done. I don't want to see people continuously turn down arcade when it's a beautifully designed mode. And I don't want to be tempted to stop playing the game myself if enemies similar to the pre-patched desert enemies become the norm for the ghost ship and later. Hopefully this doesn't come across as an angry rant.

I understand a lot is going on. In a sense one game is being developed and in another sense two games are being developed at once. And the team is small. I understand that other priorities exist right now, like actually finishing the game. And I know that there's already an understanding that some forms of balancing can be done in the future when there's much more time. But after some recent releases for both enemies and classes, I can't really tell what the "general idea" is for how a balanced Secrets of Grindea game looks. I just want to make sure that said general idea will lead to a pleasant experience...a golden experience. (I guess I'll also poke at the fact that balancing will likely get harder the longer it's put off...specifically for the enemies, though probably for the classes too...but again, I know it's a lesser priority.) In any case, I still see the game as being dank out of 10. <3



And with that...I hopefully end my 20 page posts...at least for a small era. Maybe now I shift attention to something more meaningful...like guides...when I'm free...
 
Last edited:

Own

Moderator
2) It's okay to give melee players defense. Chaldo and I whined about melee gear for awhile, and then the barbarian sash came to the game along with a few other items...but there was like no defense.

It's also okay to create glass cannon items that emphasize high attack at the cost of defense. Because there are players who like to play that kind of build.

If you want defense, put on the Breastplate.
You want attack and defense? Fighting Vest.
You just want raw damage? Barbarian Strap.
 

Chaldo

Rabby
4) Buff Flamethrower. I actually memed a lot in the discord about flamethrower being stupidly easy. My recent experiences have changed my mind. I still think flamethrower is incredibly easy early and mid game. However, because it is close combat, flamethrower runs into a lot of the issues that melee does late game. Even so, these problems are not as serious since flamethrower has some good damage and allows the player to move around while dealing dps. Some kind of buff to flamethrower would make it a more viable spell in the late game.
This entire section is very vague, so I currently disagree with the idea that it needs to be buffed. There are also two number "4"s.
 
It's also okay to create glass cannon items that emphasize high attack at the cost of defense. Because there are players who like to play that kind of build.

If you want defense, put on the Breastplate.
You want attack and defense? Fighting Vest.
You just want raw damage? Barbarian Strap.

Own, I'm not saying glass cannon is bad. I'm saying that per the requirements of melee, proper amounts of defense need to be allotted to melee -- even for good attack items. For the recent update -- with melee still being trash -- it didn't make sense to remove all defense from the Barbarian Strap or the Tank Top. If melee was some amazing class that could deal very high damage while wearing spinsect armor, then I could maybe understand the barbarian strap having no defense (honestly it should probably have had like + 30atk though).

Most of the glass cannon items in the game for melee are horrible. The angler fish hat is a joke. And the barbarian strap just slightly helped 2H until focus canceling left. There are more reasons... The only thing that does glass cannon well for 2H is Berzerk, and even it could use improvement. Mages really never get such harsh defense treatment (with the little defense they have), and it's ironic since they're mages.
 
Last edited:
This entire section is very vague, so I currently disagree with the idea that it needs to be buffed. There are also two number "4"s.

Yeah I think I talked more about what I think about flamethrower rather than why I think flamethrower should get buffed. lol. Basically, flamethrower is pretty easy until you bring it into Tai Ming or into The Desert. And I think there should be some compensation for that difficulty (especially since mages have no defense). Since flamethrower is really on difficult late game (Tai Ming/Desert), then it's likely that only gold charge flamethrower needs to be buffed to make fighting the higher up enemies more fair. Alternatively, gold flamethrower could be given something special (that doesn't necessarily include a damage buff) so that it could deal with the brutes like the echo of madness or the solem. Maybe make it do extra damage to burning enemies or something. idk. However, if the enemies are properly rebalanced, a buff to flamethrower probably won't be necessary. Buffs to 2H and some slight buffs to 1H would probably still be necessary though.

Also thanks for catching the number error. I updated the post.
 

Own

Moderator
They have a proper amount of defense. It's on the Breastplate. You get it in Tai Ming. Chances are the reason another super hefty +Defense armor wasn't added to the desert/Port Monnaie is because it would make the Breastplate a little redundant. Every single area, including inbetween dungeon areas, don't need a piece of gear suited to every build. It takes about 1-1.5 hours to get from Tai Ming to Port Monnaie, that's not a reasonable timeframe to expect to get an upgrade on all your items.

There's no 2-handed MATK weapon in Tai Ming because you get the Mega Mushroom in Mt. Bloom. I'm assuming more pure-tanky chest armor will be in Dungeon 4, probably in the form of a crab craftable or drop if I really had to guess.

The glass cannon items are 'horrible' purely from a defensive standpoint. Which is the point. If you use them you should be expecting not to be hit a lot. The counterbalance of reduced DEF for so much ATK is (I'm assuming) there to ensure people don't load up on shadowclone and go hog wild on bosses, shrugging off every attack they take.

And as for mages not getting poor defense treatment... the labcoat has 0 defense. I'm still using it. If Teddy wants to give it like -50 DEF for some more MATK, I'm all for it.

Most of your "(My specific build) got nothing this update" complaints probably stem from each new area seeming like it should be all encompassing, given the time between area additions. When, to anyone playing when the game is finished, it's just going to be an hour or two side-trip on their way to dungeon 4.
 
They have a proper amount of defense. It's on the Breastplate. You get it in Tai Ming. Chances are the reason another super hefty +Defense armor wasn't added to the desert/Port Monnaie is because it would make the Breastplate a little redundant. Every single area, including inbetween dungeon areas, don't need a piece of gear suited to every build. It takes about 1-1.5 hours to get from Tai Ming to Port Monnaie, that's not a reasonable timeframe to expect to get an upgrade on all your items.

There's no 2-handed MATK weapon in Tai Ming because you get the Mega Mushroom in Mt. Bloom. I'm assuming more pure-tanky chest armor will be in Dungeon 4, probably in the form of a crab craftable or drop if I really had to guess.

The glass cannon items are 'horrible' purely from a defensive standpoint. Which is the point. If you use them you should be expecting not to be hit a lot. The counterbalance of reduced DEF for so much ATK is (I'm assuming) there to ensure people don't load up on shadowclone and go hog wild on bosses, shrugging off every attack they take.

And as for mages not getting poor defense treatment... the labcoat has 0 defense. I'm still using it. If Teddy wants to give it like -50 DEF for some more MATK, I'm all for it.

Most of your "(My specific build) got nothing this update" complaints probably stem from each new area seeming like it should be all encompassing, given the time between area additions. When, to anyone playing when the game is finished, it's just going to be an hour or two side-trip on their way to dungeon 4.

I'm just going to say you're wrong and leave it at that. You're completely missing the point of what I just said. And you're missing the point of this entire post. My post has nothing to do with "my specific build got nothing this update". You haven't tested melee thoroughly enough to understand what it needs, but you're always willing to make inaccurate statements about the class. I've laid out a lot of stuff in this post, and I've laid out other things in the past. I'm not interested in repeating myself for the umpteenth time.

For the record, melee cannot shrug off every single attack they take, even with defense gear on.
 

The G-Meister

Giga Slime
Lemme just drop a lil' boi of an idea in here before you all eat each other alive - by adding defence to the highest +ATK gear, you're basically putting a low cap on the damage melee players can take. A low cap that is different from one without gear. This essentially removes the gear people like Own want to use, as he'd much rather something without that defence and more ATK.

So basically what you should be pushing for MLG is a general buff to melee gear. A buff where both gear with higher +ATK and still no +DEF spawns, along with gear that has higher ATK and/or higher DEF than what currently spawns. I don't really care whether melee can or cannot shrug off every attack (in fact, I'd rather push for a world where all attacks can be safely avoided with reasonable ability) and care more about variety. As in the words of Steam when advertising their horrifically undersold Steam Link (RIP), "PC gaming is all about options".

Play nice my peeps <3
 
Lemme just drop a lil' boi of an idea in here before you all eat each other alive - by adding defence to the highest +ATK gear, you're basically putting a low cap on the damage melee players can take. A low cap that is different from one without gear. This essentially removes the gear people like Own want to use, as he'd much rather something without that defence and more ATK.

Either people are not reading, or the words that I'm saying just make no sense. But my words must make no sense because I know G reads.

Close combat classes inherently need more defense so that they can survive longer. I think it would be quite fair to add the attack stat of the barbarian strap to the spinsect armor. Now this might change if melee gets more damage. There are various ways to rebalance the ways melee gets damage and defense... But melee definitely needs a sizeable amount of defense to be treated fairly. And this defense should accompany the atk buffs.

My spinsect armor + barbarian strap statement was made with respect to the current game. If you are going to remove melee's defense capabilities, you need to do so with fair reason. In the current state of the game, I don't think that the +25atk of the barbarian strap warrants having no defense at all. Similarly, the angler fish hat is trash. You dump a whole lot of defense only to get +10atk compared to the purple garland. And yet, mages get a free +15 or so matk without any defense drops. Melee's dps is still not where is needs to be.

The reason why I said "it's okay to give melee defense" is that there seems to be a very inaccurate view of melee right now -- at least when I look at how the game has been rebalanced so far. When I see the fact that mages don't incur negative defense for all the loads of stats they get thrown at them, but melee has to sacrifice defense entirely for small atk bonuses or obtain negative defense for even smaller atk bonuses, this suggests to me that melee is seen as an insanely amazing and OP class...and that melee really needs to have its defense toned down to prevent any unbalanced gameplay. However, this isn't true at all. Melee is a weaker and more vulnerable class that needs help and needs survival capability.

I never said I was opposed to glass cannon. As I said earlier, berzerker is a very good skill that could maybe use some slight improvements -- improvements like the ones KaiserFlame gave. I'm not out here saying "You know what. Just remove the damage penalty of berzerker entirely! Melee needs to last longer!" No. Having a penalty on berzerk makes sense because the dps increase is worth it. The dps increase that the barbarian strap provides is not worth the removal of all a melee player's defense stat. However, this was said with respect to the current state of the game. If melee gets reworked in the future, it may be that the barbarian strap could make melee OP. At that point, as I said, it would likely make more sense not to add defense to that piece of gear. Basically, atk and defense stats needs to be properly balanced on melee gear because melee most definitely needs good defense -- being a close-combat class. Right now, it is not properly balanced.



As an aside, I meant every word I said. But I think we were hardly near eating each other alive. lol
 

thzfunnymzn

Green Slime
I haven't played Arcade or Hard Mode to truly analyze the min/max potential of various builds. Also just plain not a fan of permadeath rogue-like, so it's unlikely I'll ever really devote time to Arcade.

However, MLG Noob does present one point that my sibling just now complained about. I've just finished my second playthrough of the beta, this time a co-op with my sister. Normal mode, definitely non-optimal builds & battle tactics on my part, and my sister especially is not a power gamer. However, she did complain that, in comparison to Secret of Mana (which Grindea is clearly paying homage to), the battles in this game are far too chaotic, with too much going on in the screen at once.

Granted, Secret of Mana is just more to her taste (more story, nostalgia from childhood, overpowered magic), but this doesn't seem like an unfair complaint. MLG Noob seems to be making this complaint as a veteran of Arcade & Hard Mode, with good analysis to back up his opinion. As for myself, I noticed that, whenever my sister died in battle (quite a few times; she's simply not a power gamer like me), there was absolutely no feasible way to revive her without either finishing the battle solo or leaving the area. That's with running a Summoner build (Gold ice buddy) to relieve the pressure off of both of us. In my previous, solo game, when I ran 2H Swords, I HAD to re-spec some of my Silver Charges towards ice buddy for the Ancient Mimic. The difference was night & day: without ice buddy, I kept falling short because I just couldn't handle everything, whereas with ice buddy, I win on my first attempt, thanks to him distracting enough foes for me to hack away at the Mimic.

From a casual standpoint, I think my previous game's 2H sword build (Gold Slam, Silver Whirlslash) output good damage. Certainly liked it much better overall than my Summoner build this game. (Except for the essential Gold ice buddy, which kinda feels mandatory for any game honestly). Again, this is a casual, normal mode run. I never really learned p.guarding, nor played around with more advanced Talents (mostly stacked HP, Potion efficacy, and Potion speed, for more healing). And I'm not disagreeing with the hecticness of later areas (see above).

For most everything else he said, I'm not in a real position to truly evaluate it, but based off of what I've seen, none of it sounds unreasonable.
 
Top