The new ranged meta - a prediction

I mean sure, I conceeded his point if you dont actually read what I wrote :slight_smile:

It is their job, but it also makes it really hard for THP on kill melee careers to do theirs.

I see this as communication and team play issue then.

Iā€™m not sure. Thereā€™s like 4 times the specials now. Ranged careers will still edge out simply because things like 3x specials at the same time as a horde at the same time as a boss is more rule than exception these days.

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Itā€™s everything together, hyperdesnity (even on CWā€™sā€¦), ice skating, insane running attacks (running even thru mass of other enemies sometimesā€¦), nerfed dodged, inc. tracking, busted temp health, broken pushing (not pushing some targets sometimes), broken sounds, out of the wall attacks, enemies spawning suddennly all around you etc.

Going ranged sure helps at least with some of those.

Alsoā€¦ I mean why would you go melee, especially with non-stagger high-range weapon like Executioner or something like that, when itā€™s now basically close to impossible to kite even few rats with high dodge weapon on elf and +15% more movement speedā€¦ (without juking em) thatā€™s just ridiculous imo.

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Thatā€™s actually interesting. I donā€™t think ā€œnormalā€ ranged is the issue, itā€™s more the aoe weapons as already stated. But indeed, @flisker is right, the faster enemies (faster to track, faster to move, and faster to attack) is detrimental to the melee side of the ā€œHardest parts of the gameā€.

Itā€™s not really the dodge nerf (which, I think, is in a fine place), itā€™s the fact that by reducing tanking (removal of the ā€œhalf damage takenā€ talent) and by buffing ennemies attack at each new difficulty (especially noticeable in latter weave where a single vermin can one shot a footknight Ć“o), melee have become, once again, unreliable.

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Some of the sound effects bug are also to be credited for melee unreliability. Melee as never been so strong, but a lot of bugs are causing unreliability. So I would avocate to wait for fix before defining a ranged meta.
Moreover with density making frontline more mandatory than ever and squishy groups dangerous in Cata.

But I agree ranged are good ATM.

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Melee in unreliable defensively. Itā€™s indeed, very fine, in terms of damage or power.

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Yes but my statement is that unreliability comes from bugs, not features, so once they are fixed the safer ranged meta wonā€™t be as much as an issue.
My only fear is that Cata will be to easy because a lot of its difficulty is artificially created by bugs

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If it becomes too easy, do twitch mode or deed on top of it.

Im actually already finding ranged far more viable again, though perhaps not in the old THP on Ranged days still, very powerful. Thyere is no point balancing ā€˜for cataā€™, its not where the game is played most. Balance all or balance the median.

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Unfortunately, there are some points :

  • New challenges make Cata completion needed
  • Weaves mode goes into Cata difficulty near Weave 42.

Since currently weaves are pointless I wouldnā€™t agree with that point.

Havenā€™t decided on balance for challenges yet, so wonā€™t rebuke that point.

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Weaves are also challenges. They also give frames.

Donā€™t get me wrong, I agree Cata is a great addition to the content, its just not a good idea to balance the game around Cata. Itā€™s like building a street car for racers, sure you can do it but its generally a financial burden.

Playing slayer lately is less and less enjoyable from my experience, running attacks is the main thing that ruins my experience so far. I ve seen some insane ice skating CW, sv insta doing running attack at melee range, marauders ice skating while gettinng assigned slots on your sides (it takes some time before you realise the marauder will end up on one of your side) etcā€¦

Sometimes i can fight 10SV and trashmobs othertimes they just all target me with a running attack at once and i cant do s*** beside holding block and dodge dancing, such gameplay wowā€¦Also i ve noticed that using 30% mouvment speed on slayer just triggers more running attacks from the ennemies and thanks to ā€œbalance patchā€ you dont have an increase dodge talent. Add to that silent specials, ghost swings, hyperdensity, beastmen, ennemies doing runnning attack and end up inside you, trashmob random aggro switch witch can restrain you from dodging etcā€¦ no wonder people want to stay as far as possible from them!

On a more personal note:
I ve been doing some FoW lately and the amount of bullshitery is insane, i made a shity paint to illustrate a frustrating situation: Red circles are CW doing running attacks (aka ice skating) in my direction, there is one CW isolated with a litle line, the line illustrate its attack direction and finaly me as a black star following the path as illustrated on the pic. Mind you this is a simplification there are trash mobs arround me and some stuff (geometry) that forces me into following the black line.

That 1 stupid f**** CW that somehow left the CW pack for no reason, got assigned the most broken slot, while doing an overhead attack in the most frustrating direction (basicaly cutting me off) just ice skated all this distance (through 10 slavrats) in like 2 seconds and broke my block. The worst thing is that he was mirroring all my mouvment at an extreme speed, witch means if i decided to go left (West) or dodge left he instantly would go left. For the whole windhup phase of his attack he was ~2 meters far away but he somehow timed perfectly his attack and hit me as soon as he was in melee range (more like face kissing range).

From my experience playing slayer almost 70h (more than half on cata) since the release i can just relate on how much some of these bugs make the experience frustrating and how it promote certaine builds (ranged weapon when possible as OP pointed out). I feel like i need an 1 handed weapon and 2h hammer in all situations if i want to survive these situations without beeing crushed to death.

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Iā€™ve stopped playing slayer. People keep telling me hes good now but I simply donā€™t enjoy him. is he still good, maybe I donā€™t care, hes not fun.

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Oh yeah, totally forgot about that thing.

Well, only issue remains that stuff that doesnā€™t affect core game shouldnā€™t influence balance and WoM being so locked off that you wouldnā€™t notice it if you werenā€™t looking for it for most part falls into that category.

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Iā€™m still salty about the cleave nerfs, I think those havenā€™t helped either. This isnā€™t VT1, I like having many enemies to face and cleaving through multiple of them per swing.

Actually thereā€™s one broken build on HM if you take the AS on dodge talent and Crit on ult you can basically delete everything while your ult is up. Glaive at least can be used to singlehandedly delete an entire Legend CW patrol like that.

Unfortunately glaiveā€™s cleave is ass now so other than that it isnā€™t satisfying to use, you might as well use axe if you want bad cleave and AP.

Agreed with the rest of your post.

Honestly, yes to getting decent cleave back. Yes to getting more THP (it was too much before, but they overnerfed it, and without addressing the reasons it is needed in VT2 - eating random BS hits and the fact enemies outnumber you so much more than VT1 - in fact, even beastmen aside, post WoM you eat way more random hits due to bull with enemies materialising beside you, using running attacks to instantly occupy places where you just pushed their buddies out of and immediately hit you, and enemies attacking quicker). Yes to reliable dodging, really all that needs is for horde enemies not to track and elite enemies not to insta-switch targets (as your teammate dodging before you dodge can cause them to insta relock/track on you and hit you instead).

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Iā€™m going to test two hander sword and dual swords with that build. It is kinda fun, but glaive feels eh.