Armed, a Thread

[Prestige]

i can't believe mouse is dragging me to talk about melee. please spare me the downvotes i am only here to argue against mouse's points. i don't care for the balance of this tree (anymore). :pleading:

Let's do it by points:

Arguing that melee is fine because beams outdamage certain spells is actually the weirdest thing to do. Beams are the hardest spell to land in the game, and yes, it rewards you if you're good enough to land it or abuse a cheese mechanic (pyro, hey!). Cheese aside, it's rare for people to even go for beams. In fact, I dare you to go out and see how many people / characters in game have beams right now without Metal/Sand/Explosion to support them. My guess would be less than 5. And I am being lenient here.

Let's move on.

Fatal Strike is a semi-homing spell (everyone knows this by now, right?) combined when combined with dash. You also didn't count Fatal's damage after bleed, but that's alright. I'll ignore that part. I do want to say that, again, comparing it to a beam is dumb. If beams were as good as you say they are, people would dip for them. It costs 20 RPP to reach Water Beam. Go ahead. Is it really so good that the entire server sleeps on it or is it just... A high-skill spell?

I think we -both- know the answer.

You can compare it to Blood Beam maybe, but... It'd cost you... 75 RPP to buy Blood beam. On the other hand, it costs you 35 RPP to buy Fatal. Surprise, surprise. Another point for melee!

Dash strike straight up ignores slows and quite literally does NOT register certain spells. It'd literally allow you to pass through them and take no damage. 6 Seconds CD that is brought down to, let's say, 4? You're right. It is a second dash. You have two dashes every four seconds. Cool.

I think saying that melee, on average, has an advantage over mages is a kneejerk.

It really isn't though. Look at the numbers. Look at the cost of the tree. Look at the best homing ingame that is a BASIC spell. Look at the fact that, for some reason, everyone considers the AP stances to be a 'standard' so rejecting someone's application for it is almost cruel-- and there you have it. Melee is better. But if you're not convinced quite yet, allow me to continue.

You also forgot to mention P.Smash.
So let me do that for you: this move that used to be about skill (and you could very much miss!) had its range increased to 2. Not a big deal. And then you realize that with Garuda (which everyone has, either normally or on an AP stance) it's increased to 4. 13 Damage / 27 seconds of CD. The funny part is that you used to be able to whiff it since you could cast it anywhere. Now? You can only cast it if you're in range. Crazy. Give melee another crouch for...
Actually, I don't know why it was given another crouch.

I could go on and on, I could give more examples for traditional homings vs phantom strikes. Spells with Fatal's damage that are harder to land and have less damage (and cost way more to buy), or even spells similar to Power Smash - but is there really a point? You can see it in this thread. When someone tries to even mention the balance of this tree they are met with: downvotes, of course (hence why the meme is a thing btw. bog and i were -40'd for just saying 'melee is not balanced' when it was much worse than now)... And well, people telling them they're wrong while blatantly ignoring facts.

I'd love to discuss this though. If someone thinks they can prove me wrong— please do.

I might even mention how dumb the AP stances are with melee when you involve element boosts from spells.