Fix Melee Cones

[Enf123]

Melee cones need to be wider, have more range and be more forgiving.  It is ridiculous that three enemies can be standing side by side and only the middle one gets hit.  I think more people would play melee and therefore increase the replay value for many.

[Rudra]

Or you can take a step back so the cone's width where the enemies are is big enough to catch all three. Or shift to a side and position them to be in the cone.

[FupDup]

The ones that are already like 90+ degrees are easy enough to line up without wasting time/losing DPS on repositioning. 

 

The more narrow ones, like Fire Breath, on the other hand...ouch. 

 

A bigger issue is why cones in general (both ranged and melee alike) were given a lower target cap than other AOE types (PBAOE, TAOE) despite the added difficulty in aiming. One would logically expect the harder to aim powers to be given an advantage in exchange, or at the very least be on equal footing. 

[JasperStone]

Weren't Tanker melee cones widen?

[skoryy]

Shadow Maul is up to 135 degrees.  That's not an issue anymore with Dark Melee.

[TheZag]

Its because the cone starts as the literal point of a triangle at your character and grows from there.  If it were possible for the origin of the cone to start at 2 feet wide on your character and end at its current range,  it would make hitting those 3 close targets more consistent and less frustrating while adding very little square footage to the overall size of the cone.  Having to take 2 steps back to get enemies in range isnt the best design if the cone shapes can be adjusted (im not sure if they can be changed).

 

[srmalloy]

3 hours ago, skoryy said:

Shadow Maul is up to 135 degrees.  That's not an issue anymore with Dark Melee.

The Sands of Mu temporary power and its prestige attack version still have the old width and target limit; this may or may not be intentional, to keep the non-powerset attacks less effective.

[Uun]

The number of melee cones that need to be adjusted is actually pretty small. The table below shows all of them (excluding Shockwave and Throw Spines) sorted by arc (scrapper stats).

• The melee cones most in need of adjustment are Jacob's Ladder, Sweeping Cross, Psi Blade Sweep, Proton Sweep and Shred. Anything with an arc of 90 degrees or greater is fine.
• Head Spitter and Golden  Dragonfly are intentionally narrow and are balanced as ST attacks. The cone is intended as a bonus. 
• Breath of Fire is intentionally narrow and has greater range to compensate.
• Fault is unique in that the damage cone is overlaid on a stun/kd targeted AoE with a 15ft radius and 20 ft range.

 

	Arc	Radius
Head Splitter	20	10
Golden Dragonfly	20	10
Breath of Fire	30	15
Jacob's Ladder	50	7
Sweeping Cross	50	7
Fault	55	20
Psi Blade Sweep	70	7
Proton Sweep	75	7
Shred	80	7
Eviscerate	90	7
Sweeping Strike	90	7
1000 Cuts	90	7
Frost	90	10
Ripper	90	7
Guarded Spin	90	9
Innocuous Strikes	90	9
Shadow Maul	120	7
Power Crash	120	10
Defensive Sweep	120	10
Titan Sweep	120	10
Arc of Destruction	120	10
Slice	130	7
Flashing Steel	130	7
Crowd Control	180	8

[tidge]

I haven't dug through all of the melee cones, but my immediate reaction is: At low levels, with small spawn sizes... it is annoying that the melee cones rarely hit more than one enemy (at +Nx1) without subtly adjusting my character's positioning. Two things happen: I learn to adjust my position and/or I turn up the spawn size... at higher spawn sizes even my low-level melee cones will hit more enemies. I make no claims to how "balanced" this is, just that this is my experience.

 

Some of the melee cones have control secondary effects, I don't know how 'balanced' this is in aggregate. Historically I always got the impression that the (Live) devs over-valued enemy controls (especially stuns) as opposed to things like enemy debuffs.

 

I certainly don't object to a review of melee cones, but my suspicion is that some of them (particularly those available as very early power choices) probably don't need any improvement.

[Greycat]

New powerset. Melee cones.

 

 

[DrRocket]

I often have my Scrappers totally surrounded by mobs, and I do a cone, and amazingly the cone only hits a single target, frankly I am so disappointed with melee cones, that frankly they should take them away and just give me  single target hit with decent DPS.

 

Regards

[Rudra]

13 minutes ago, DrRocket said:

I often have my Scrappers totally surrounded by mobs, and I do a cone, and amazingly the cone only hits a single target, frankly I am so disappointed with melee cones, that frankly they should take them away and just give me  single target hit with decent DPS.

 

Regards

If you are surrounded, then you need to re-position your foes so the cone can hit them. Easiest way to do that is to get out from being surrounded and group them in front of you to launch your cone before they surround you again.

[DrRocket]

On 7/10/2024 at 3:13 PM, Rudra said:

If you are surrounded, then you need to re-position your foes so the cone can hit them. Easiest way to do that is to get out from being surrounded and group them in front of you to launch your cone before they surround you again.

Why? I am engulfed by mobs, I should not need to waste 3 rounds positioning, while they are getting free hits all along, when I already have enough mobs to be totally around me 2 deep!

[Rudra]

48 minutes ago, DrRocket said:

On 7/10/2024 at 2:13 PM, Rudra said:

If you are surrounded, then you need to re-position your foes so the cone can hit them. Easiest way to do that is to get out from being surrounded and group them in front of you to launch your cone before they surround you again.

Why? I am engulfed by mobs, I should not need to waste 3 rounds positioning, while they are getting free hits all along, when I already have enough mobs to be totally around me 2 deep!

If you are surrounded, it is because the game AI is moving to position the mobs where they can attack you. This usually means they are getting out of your area of effect. So you have to re-position them to be back in your area of effect. If you are playing on a high enough difficulty that the mobs are surrounding you 2-3 deep like you are saying, then just cut loose with your cone and you will hit them. If you aren't? Then you should check to see what you are doing versus what they are doing.

 

And if you are taking "3 rounds" to position to use a cone? Then I don't know how to help you. It only takes my characters a single step or two left, back, or right to get the mobs into the cone unless they are scattered and so not in melee range anyway.