[Ivory]

Originally Posted by Noselacri [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Isn't it really optimistic to assume that you'll do 40 damage per swing on average? Quite a lot of them will miss, necros cap their weapon skills at 110. I'd be surprised if you land even half of your attacks, and many of those will be for minimal damage.

And how are you getting a 40 delay weapon down to 1 or 1.5 seconds? Even 100% haste would result in an effective delay of 20.

These numbers just don't seem to add up.

Necro melee isn't THAT bad. I was just battling a bunch of ice giants with melee... and with a 9 damage weapon, I was regularly hitting for 18 - 22ish. So with a 40 damage weapon, hitting for around 80 - 100 is going to be more typical, though with misses 40 is safer to calculate from.

The attack speed were just a random thing, but at level 60 you have a haste cap of 100% (with a haste buff + item you are there).

New (Hasted) Delay = Delay/(1+Haste)

So really it would be at 2 seconds per swing with the rod. Which is 150 attacks over 5 minutes... which doesn't effect the proc damage (since it's per minute based in general), but brings the melee damage down to 40 x 150 = 6000 + 465.... which is still 6465 damage compared to a dotting necro getting FULL damage of 4230.

BUT again, that damage is at 4.7 DPM....assuming you get FULL damage from all of your dots over 5 minutes.

It's still so far from where a melee necro gets (and we don't really know the exact amount, since there is some wiggle room for that necro melee to be even higher... or lower, if they miss a ton, but I don't really notice THAT much missing).

Quite a lot of them will miss, necros cap their weapon skills at 110.

Yup, necros weapon skills are lower, but that isn't make or break. Especially since you can compensate some for attack skill with strength. So 1 strength can make up for 1 weapon skill (and there is a lot of room to boost that, even with the level 60 kunark build, the strength is sitting at just 141... so if going full DPS in a group, grab a strength buff of 68 from a shaman.

Let alone the more mysterious finding that higher strength will increase your max damage hits... which actually might explain why I was seeing hits for 50 with my 20 damage staff, since casters don't get the main hand bonus damage... so it was just coming from my 101 strength right now? Hmmm, that might make melee even more effective than I thought with more focus on strength.

I'm reading it now, and it looks like your MOD bonus is

(Offensive skill + STR) / 100

For necromancer, they cap at 140 offense

So

(140 + 250) / 100 = 3.9

Which means with a 40 damage weapon, you will have a max hit of 156 (if you get up to 250 str).

With a more modest 140 str

(140 + 140) / 100 = 2.8

or 112 damage.....

Hmmm, I wonder if going heavier into strength would be more worth it for a bone knight? Some weapons are just too strong to ignore their procs (the undead legions and then a couple velious ones).... but maybe a more balanced approach to dex and str would be good.

So, why don't we hear about more casters meleeing? There is just a strange mentality around it (even though the numbers seem to be quite fine). What caster is focusing on their STR any?? Let alone getting a haste item or even bothering to keep their skills up?

Even lower level you don't see casters or clerics meleeing (even though their weapon / offensive skills haven't dropped off yet, making them as good at melee as a knight class.... with necromancers vampiric embrace making them BETTER melees than knights).

Anyhow, build wise, I think switching out the earrings and rings and maybe shoulder / back for more strength... and then shaman buff + siphon would be enough to take strength up towards 250ish (while still having high dex).

Being able to hit for almost 160 sure would be something though!!!!

Heck, let's calculate the level 60 damage hitting at 2/3rds of your hits at about 3/4ths of your max hit.

Which is about 80 damage per hit (if you put in the misses as just reduction in damage, so 160 x 0.75 x 0.66 = 80).... for 150 hits... that's 12,000 damage!!! From melee damage alone (again, still about 500 damage from procs added on there too).... with the possibility of going higher if you are fully melee buffed or lower the AC of the target.

Compared to a caster necro.... getting that same 900ish mana from medding... and turning it into dots.... even level 50+ dots aren't giving you better than 4.7 damage per mana...... so still sitting at about 4230 damage (maybe they can cast a tiny bit more with their increase of 2 mana per tick from meditating......of 50 ticks over 5 minutes... or 100 extra mana..... so, 470 extra damage than they had at 50?)

It's just night and day in terms of the potential damage. Even if you cut the damage of melee by HALF, it STILL blows the medding necro out of the water.

......

I dunno, the more I look at the numbers, the more bananas meleeing seems to be at higher levels with a proper build and some key high end items.

But don't think you NEED the rod of annihilation either. Because a 1:1 ratio weapon for a caster isn't THAT crazy. Especially once velious hits you can get velium brawl sticks and go to town.

Where does it ULTIMATELY all end up? Well.... the most amazing, top tier bone weapon of all time... is this...

https://wiki.project1999.com/Staff_of_the_Silent_Star

15/18... procs a 400 DD with -300 fire resist checks.......

Now THAT is the ultimate weapon of DPS in melee for a bone knight. Combining the procs with the raw melees.... so amazins.