Why are only melee punished by weapon specific skill gems?

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Torguemada написал:

Your still stuck thinking melee weapons as a single category when their not.

You're still stuck thinking melee weapons are separate categories when they're not.

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There are multiple differend weapon types and they all have multiple skills that can be used with them and multiple skill that can't.

And I for one see no need for this restriction, particularly given the amount of overlap that already exists between melee weapons and their associated gem skills.

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Sickness написал:

Every attack with every weapon. Every MELEE attack with every MELEE weapon. The difference is arbitrary.

Arguably so. But it's my arbitrary categorization to make. And given that the devs commonly talk about melee as a category, I feel comfortable doing so as well.

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Cleaving something with your club does not inherintly make more sense than firing an arrow from your dagger.

To you, perhaps. I feel differently. Thus we diverge.

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You are really not listening. The weapon types are NOT melee and ranged, they are bow, sword, axe, dagger etc etc.

I hear you just fine. I group those into melee and ranged. Call them weapon categories, call them types, classes, associations, colleges, bunches or bundles. Melee vs. ranged.

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This is only confusing for you because there are so few different ranged weapons.

Wait, wait -- what's this "ranged weapon" thingamabob? I thought weapons can't be grouped like that. Now I really AM confused !!

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Imagine if there were more, then I'm sure that there would be alot more skills that were restricted to specific ranged weapons. That would be the natural thing, and the mechanics does not change at all.

I'd be fine with that, too, actually. That's the nerf direction, rather than the buff; but the end result is the same.

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Look at each weapon type speraratly and see how many skills they can use. Don't look at how many skills from some arbitrary ranged and melee categories they can't use, because then you are comparing something that is completely irrelevant.

As I've stated previously, I'll look at at it any which way I choose -- unless you can give me a good reason to do otherwise. Swords users are RESTRICTED from using melee gem attacks that don't allow swords. This restriction provides no purpose, no utility, only serving to further impede melee characters. In the meanwhile, bow users suffer almost no such restriction, and magic wielders have no restriction whatsoever. This is imbalanced, and unfair.

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starsg написал:

Cos, almost all melee weapons have Implicit Mods on them, thus making them unique in their own way.

An interesting point. Yet within the melee category, there are gems that do indeed allow characters to use any melee weapon they'd like. How, then, could the intrinsic attributes of melee weapons be said to be counter-balanced?

Furthermore, caster weapons also have intrinsic/implicit/whatever mods that serve to enhance their attacks. Yet they have no restrictions whatsoever on which weapons they must wield; indeed, they could choose to use a non-caster weapon, or no weapon at all.

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Xaxyx написал:

Arguably so. But it's my arbitrary categorization to make.

Sure, but if you make a stupid arbitrary categorization then ofcourse any argument based on that will make very little sense.

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Xaxyx написал:

I hear you just fine. I group those into melee and ranged. Call them weapon categories, call them types, classes, associations, colleges, bunches or bundles. Melee vs. ranged.

If you were listening you would know that it's by grouping them into melee and ranged you end up with your flawed conclusions.

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Xaxyx написал:

As I've stated previously, I'll look at at it any which way I choose -- unless you can give me a good reason to do otherwise.

Yeah, you can keep your head in the sand and ignore everything we are telling you if you want to.

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Xaxyx написал:

Swords users are RESTRICTED from using melee gem attacks that don't allow swords.

Guess what, bow users are RESTRICTED from using gem attacks that don't allow bows.
There is no scandal here.

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Xaxyx написал:

This restriction provides no purpose, no utility, only serving to further impede melee characters. In the meanwhile, bow users suffer almost no such restriction, and magic wielders have no restriction whatsoever. This is imbalanced, and unfair.

The purpose is to make the choice of weapon more meaningful and interesting. They don't want weapons to be as homogenous, as for example in D3.
Some restrictions may be quite arbitrary and are only there for balance, but some really make sense. Like you can't use LA with a sword, and you can't cleave with a club.

If you want to make an argument that bows have less restrictions than all the individual melee weapons (not melee weapon as a whole, because that is a apples vs oranges) then simply make a list of how many skills each weapon can use and show us that bows can use far more than the rest. Because, again, how many skills a weapon cannot use from YOUR ARBITRARY CATEGORIZATION is not interesting or useful at all.

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Sickness написал:

Sure, but if you make a stupid arbitrary categorization then ofcourse any argument based on that will make very little sense.

I'll just have to take your word for it.

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If you were listening you would know that it's by grouping them into melee and ranged you end up with your flawed conclusions.

As I have yet to be presented with evidence to the contrary, I beg to differ.

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Yeah, you can keep your head in the sand and ignore everything we are telling you if you want to.

Your approval is greatly appreciated!

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Guess what, bow users are RESTRICTED from using gem attacks that don't allow bows.
There is no scandal here.

Bow users are restricted from using all of one ranged skill. Various melee weapons are restricted from three, six, seven, as many as fourteen melee skills. Not a scenario I'd term as scandalous, admittedly, but still cause for concern.

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Xaxyx написал:

The purpose is to make the choice of weapon more meaningful and interesting. They don't want weapons to be as homogenous, as for example in D3.

Melee weapons aren't homogenous, as they already possess differing intrinsic attributes.

Furthermore, there already do exist melee gem skill that DO allow any ol' melee weapon to be used with them. Where's the criticism in these? Wherefore are thestalwart defenders of weapon diversity, petitioning that these skills be imposed with restrictions on weapon use? All I hear is silence.

Furthermore, bows ARE homogenized; they lack any intrinsic distinctions. Where's the objection to THIS exception?

Furthermore, magic weapons have BOTH diverging intrinsic characteristics AND a total lack of restriction on gem use. Where's the outrage?

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Some restrictions may be quite arbitrary and are only there for balance, but some really make sense. Like you can't use LA with a sword, and you can't cleave with a club.

Aaaand now we flop back over to the wonderful wide world of plausibility, wherein it "makes sense" that characters can produce Fireballs even while wielding two-handed swords, but they can't slam the ground with them.

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If you want to make an argument that bows have less restrictions than all the individual melee weapons (not melee weapon as a whole, because that is a apples vs oranges) then simply make a list of how many skills each weapon can use and show us that bows can use far more than the rest. Because, again, how many skills a weapon cannot use from YOUR ARBITRARY CATEGORIZATION is not interesting or useful at all.

I find it both interesting and useful. I also find it sets a pattern. My concern, for one, is that the devs will continue to release bow skills that can be used by any bow, and continue to release melee skills that can only be used by a handful of melee weapons, and continue to release magic skills that can be used with anything from a hunk of coal to a trained beaver.

Whereas, if we object now, if we illustrate the unfairness of this dynamic now, the devs may pause and reflect. You might not. But they might.

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Xaxyx написал:

Furthermore, bows ARE homogenized; they lack any intrinsic distinctions. Where's the objection to THIS exception?

That is not an exception at all. Bows are just like ANY OTHER WEAPON in this regard.

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Xaxyx написал:

I find it both interesting and useful. I also find it sets a pattern. My concern, for one, is that the devs will continue to release bow skills that can be used by any bow, and continue to release melee skills that can only be used by a handful of melee weapons

Here you trip over yourself again because of your meanignless arbitrary categorization. Bow skills that can be used by any bow is equal to dagger skills that can be used by any dagger.


Until you stop seeing "melee weapons" and bows as the two weapon types we can make no progress at all here.

Bows being ranged is just a property of that weapon type.
Swords, bows, axes, clubs and daggers are all different weapon types. The degree of which they differ is not a fundamental issue here. You can't just take the one that you think differs most from the others in one regard and lump everything else into one category and expect to make any sensible arguments or conclusions from it. They are ALL DIFFERENT.
A sword user is supposed to be different from both a bow user and a club user. It's not imbalanced aslong as each weapon type has access to roughly the same number of skills and the skills are balanced between themselves.

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Furthermore, there already do exist melee gem skill that DO allow any ol' melee weapon to be used with them. Where's the criticism in these? Wherefore are thestalwart defenders of weapon diversity, petitioning that these skills be imposed with restrictions on weapon use? All I hear is silence.

Maybe because the stalwart defenders of weapon diversity also like diversity in skills and appreciate that some skills have no restrictions.

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Melee weapons aren't homogenous, as they already possess differing intrinsic attributes.

It's about the degree of homogeneity and the choices (or lack of) it leads to. The diffrent instrinsic attributes that weapons have makes a quite small difference and doesn't lead to many interesting choices. In most cases you just make a calculation and go with the one with highest DPS, and a calculation is not a choice.

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Sickness написал:

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Xaxyx написал:

Furthermore, bows ARE homogenized; they lack any intrinsic distinctions. Where's the objection to THIS exception?

That is not an exception at all. Bows are just like ANY OTHER WEAPON in this regard.

Bows have no intrinsic attributes. They are thus UNLIKE any other weapon in this regard.

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Here you trip over yourself again because of your meanignless arbitrary categorization. Bow skills that can be used by any bow is equal to dagger skills that can be used by any dagger.

And ranged skills that cannot be used by any bow are unlike melee skills that cannot be used by any dagger, insofar as that there are significantly more such melee skills.

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Until you stop seeing "melee weapons" and bows as the two weapon types we can make no progress at all here.

You're in for a long ride, then. Hope you brought juice.

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Bows being ranged is just a property of that weapon type.

Bows being ranged dramatically distinguishes them from melee weapons. Whole character archetypes are built around the distinction between melee, ranged, and caster. These classifications are hardly arbitrary; hell, they're listed right there on the gems.

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Swords, bows, axes, clubs and daggers are all different weapon types. The degree of which they differ is not a fundamental issue here. You can't just take the one that you think differs most from the others in one regard and lump everything else into one category and expect to make any sensible arguments or conclusions from it. They are ALL DIFFERENT.
A sword user is supposed to be different from both a bow user and a club user. It's not imbalanced aslong as each weapon type has access to roughly the same number of skills and the skills are balanced between themselves.

The play style of melee characters vastly differs from that of ranged. Sword users are stuck in melee range. Club users are stuck in melee range. Bow users are not. Thus, I consider their fates distinctly. In this regard, I find it consternating that sword and/or club wielding characters, already having to suffer under the yoke of fighting in melee range, with melee gem skills, must also further be forced to choose between specific allowable melee gems, as opposed to bow ranged wielders who do not.

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Maybe because the stalwart defenders of weapon diversity also like diversity in skills and appreciate that some skills have no restrictions.

So which is it, then? Restrictions are good, or aren't good? Or is only having some restrictions good? If so, then why are the vast majority of these restrictions imposed on melee?

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It's about the degree of homogeneity and the choices (or lack of) it leads to. The diffrent instrinsic attributes that weapons have makes a quite small difference and doesn't lead to many interesting choices. In most cases you just make a calculation and go with the one with highest DPS, and a calculation is not a choice.

I disagree. Speaking on my own behalf, I have already made weapon type choices for my melee characters based on the intrinsic characteristics of the weapon selection available to them. It is a factor. It's sure as hell a factor for a magic wielder's choice, insofar as that it's pretty much the ONLY criteria for their weapon selection in any event.

And yes, choices based on calculations are still choices, even when the correct choice is stunningly obvious. But if you prefer, let's go with "options". I'd prefer that melee characters had more options in selecting melee weapons for use with melee gem skills. I feel that restricting these options for certain select weapons for certain select melee gem skills serves neither function nor purpose, particularly when compared to (a) other melee gem skills with no such restriction, (b) ranged skills with almost no such restriction as pertains to bows, and (c) magic skills with no such restriction whatsoever.

But if you really are tired of hearing me biotch about melee vs. ranged, I'll narrow my scope momentarily: I object to the fact that dagger-wielders are forbidden from using no less than seven different melee gem skills, as compared to sword-wielders who are only forbidden from using three. From there, I would obviously expand and elaborate; but let's just stick with this one, specific example, and see what dark, ominous hole it leads us down.

I feel like you don't truly read my posts when I actually put effort into them. I'll try to be serious once more.

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Xaxyx написал:

Bow users are restricted from using all of one ranged skill. Various melee weapons are restricted from three, six, seven, as many as fourteen melee skills. Not a scenario I'd term as scandalous, admittedly, but still cause for concern.

It only SEEMS like Melee doesn't have a ton of options.
http://en.pathofexilewiki.com/wiki/Melee_Skill

Next to unarmed, the highest number of restricted skills for any weapon is 7. Avg is 5.8. This is in a skill pool of 19 options. That means melee weapons, even with subclasses, typically have about 13 skills options each. Bow users don't even have that many TOTAL. Melee has more options than ranged, so this isn't a valid point any more. Moving onto your next argument.

The next point you keep reiterating is that there's no reason to divide the melee weapons up. If I am correct, you think "it adds no value to the game and just restricts players."
Please watch this video:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/choice-and-conflict

"Choice is overcomming internal conflict. Without conflict, there is no choice, only decisions."
By dividing the weapons up, the devs are forcing you to make meaningful choices. You are overcoming internal conflict because sometimes, there isn't a clear answer. If it has a clear answer, it becomes a decision or calculation instead.

Please specifically focus on 4:30 and forward in the video. By separating the weapons out, it avoids the "WoW Skill Tree" scenario. You'll run into situations where you can use a hammer to stun many mobs, but do less damage. Or you can do more damage, but won't have any CC with cleave. If these restrictions weren't there forcing you to make choices and overcome internal conflict, the game would actually be less appealing to you psychologically. You would just grab the sword for more damage and the ground slam for all the CC. Now there becomes one "best" build and the only choice left to you after that is to choose to not run the most optimal build; this isn't a choice that is exciting or rewarding for the player.

In short, dividing the weapons up actually adds a ton of value to the game, even if you feel restricted, which you clearly aren't in contrast to every other weapon which has a much smaller skill pool to select from.

Your next argument will be, "why aren't ranged weapons restricted in an equal fashion?" The answer to this is simple; there aren't enough ranged types in the game yet. When more ranged weapons are added, the ratios will shift everything closer to what melee is currently like. Suggesting to restrict the ranged weapons now will only restrict a weapon type that already has fewer choices than melee.

Moving forward, suspension of disbelief is another reason you can't ground slam with a sword. Because our brain knows that an equal force applied to a smaller surface actually increases the force that surface applies to anything it contacts, we know that ground-striking with a sword would actually cause the sword to penetrate the ground, likely getting stuck, and rendering you an ineffective combatant. If we were to see this working as you want in a game, our ability to suspend disbelief would be shattered, because we know the actual outcome is something based on fundamental physics we use in every day life. The majority of the population, rather you are included or not, would not believe a sword groundslam would be possible. Therefore, it was not put into the game.
In short, the devs are going to go with the majority when it comes to suspended disbelief, which is a proven and important concept for any fantasy world.


Now, I do believe I have just about quelled any points you have put forward up to this point with logical, factual based information. If you can dispute any of this without blowing it off using sarcastic remarks or skipping it and instead by using factual based information that can be supported like I have, I will consider actually continuing in this thread with you. Otherwise, I'll assume you are trolling and most others will likely see this and follow suit in leaving this thread. Not trying to be threatening, but it seems like most people are getting pretty tired at this point.

I look forward to hearing what you have to say.

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Xaxyx написал:

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Sickness написал:

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Xaxyx написал:

Furthermore, bows ARE homogenized; they lack any intrinsic distinctions. Where's the objection to THIS exception?

That is not an exception at all. Bows are just like ANY OTHER WEAPON in this regard.

Bows have no intrinsic attributes. They are thus UNLIKE any other weapon in this regard.

Hi, have you met Axe?

Bows are ranged. That's what makes them different.

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Xaxyx написал:

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Here you trip over yourself again because of your meanignless arbitrary categorization. Bow skills that can be used by any bow is equal to dagger skills that can be used by any dagger.

And ranged skills that cannot be used by any bow are unlike melee skills that cannot be used by any dagger, insofar as that there are significantly more such melee skills.

There are more such skills only because there are more melee weapons. It's obvious why bows can use almost all ranged skills: Because it's the only ranged weapon except wands.

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Xaxyx написал:

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Until you stop seeing "melee weapons" and bows as the two weapon types we can make no progress at all here.

You're in for a long ride, then. Hope you brought juice.

Bragging about how ignorant you are. Classy.

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Xaxyx написал:

The play style of melee characters vastly differs from that of ranged. Sword users are stuck in melee range. Club users are stuck in melee range. Bow users are not. Thus, I consider their fates distinctly. In this regard, I find it consternating that sword and/or club wielding characters, already having to suffer under the yoke of fighting in melee range, with melee gem skills, must also further be forced to choose between specific allowable melee gems, as opposed to bow ranged wielders who do not.

Again, your failure to understand this comes down to the lack of different ranged weapons.
You don't comprehend that a bow user choses not to use heavy strike and infernal blow.

Melee VS ranged balance is obviously very important, but aslong as the skills the mselves are balanced then the weapon restrictions really don't affect the balance very much.

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Xaxyx написал:

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Maybe because the stalwart defenders of weapon diversity also like diversity in skills and appreciate that some skills have no restrictions.

So which is it, then? Restrictions are good, or aren't good? Or is only having some restrictions good? If so, then why are the vast majority of these restrictions imposed on melee?

Now you are surely trolling. Or do I have to explain that restrictions can be good AND bad?


The vast majority of weapons are melee, so it makes sense.

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Xaxyx написал:

And yes, choices based on calculations are still choices, even when the correct choice is stunningly obvious. But if you prefer, let's go with "options".

Take a look at the video Terrornoid linked.

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Xaxyx написал:

But if you really are tired of hearing me biotch about melee vs. ranged, I'll narrow my scope momentarily: I object to the fact that dagger-wielders are forbidden from using no less than seven different melee gem skills, as compared to sword-wielders who are only forbidden from using three. From there, I would obviously expand and elaborate; but let's just stick with this one, specific example, and see what dark, ominous hole it leads us down.

If we consider the fact that daggers require int and have a intrinsic bonus that is useful for spell casters I would say that how many skills they can use is not the only factor to consider when comparing them to swords.

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Terrornoid написал:

I feel like you don't truly read my posts when I actually put effort into them. I'll try to be serious once more.

If it's any consolation, I read all of your posts carefully, irrespective of how much effort you put into them.

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Xaxyx написал:

It only SEEMS like Melee doesn't have a ton of options.

I for one sure was fooled.

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Next to unarmed, the highest number of restricted skills for any weapon is 7. Avg is 5.8. This is in a skill pool of 19 options. That means melee weapons, even with subclasses, typically have about 13 skills options each. Bow users don't even have that many TOTAL.

Yet they seem to be perfectly happy with the choices allotted to them. Strange, that they're not complaining. Very strange indeed.

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Melee has more options than ranged, so this isn't a valid point any more. Moving onto your next argument.

I see what you did there. But I'm not just concerned with how many options they have. I'm concerned with how many options they're denied, for no particularly good reason. And I'll continue to retain that concern even while you claim that my point isn't valid.

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The next point you keep reiterating is that there's no reason to divide the melee weapons up. If I am correct, you think "it adds no value to the game and just restricts players."

That's more or less the crux of it, yup.

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Please watch this video:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/choice-and-conflict

I watched it, since you asked nicely. Plus, Penny Arcade rocks.

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"Choice is overcomming internal conflict. Without conflict, there is no choice, only decisions."
By dividing the weapons up, the devs are forcing you to make meaningful choices. You are overcoming internal conflict because sometimes, there isn't a clear answer. If it has a clear answer, it becomes a decision or calculation instead.

Whereas, by dividing up the weapons as regards some melee skills, but NOT dividing up the weapons as pertains to other melee skills, the devs are sending a mixed message. Either they want us to make interesting choices between weapon-skill combinations via restrictions; or they want to give us the freedom to pick our own, preferred weapon to combine with skills via a lack of restrictions. Which is it? Why two choice models at once?

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Please specifically focus on 4:30 and forward in the video. By separating the weapons out, it avoids the "WoW Skill Tree" scenario. You'll run into situations where you can use a hammer to stun many mobs, but do less damage. Or you can do more damage, but won't have any CC with cleave. If these restrictions weren't there forcing you to make choices and overcome internal conflict, the game would actually be less appealing to you psychologically. You would just grab the sword for more damage and the ground slam for all the CC. Now there becomes one "best" build and the only choice left to you after that is to choose to not run the most optimal build; this isn't a choice that is exciting or rewarding for the player.

I'm very glad they, and you, picked this particular scenario as an example. It gives me the rare opportunity to discuss -- brag, really -- about how I broke WoW.

I broke WoW, back in the day -- you remember that day, don't you? -- when the talent trees were hideously complex mish-moshes of inanity, and we'd scream and yell and rant and rave on the forums about imbalance and crazy patches with no patch notes and normalization. This was all during that golden age of WoW play when super-uber hardcore guilds were just coming into style, spreadsheets were flying around, and damage meters were being introduced and refined.

Around that time, I was playing a rogue in a somewhat hardcore raiding guild. We had Molten Core and Blackwing Lair down fairly well and were fumbling around in Ahn'Qiraj. Now around that time, if you asked the rogue community what kind of raiding rogue templates there were, they'd tell you that there were two. You had your standard, stereotypical backstab rogue, who wielded daggers; and you had your standard, not-so-stereotypical combat rogue, who wielded swords or, rarely, claws (generally only if you managed to snag a Claw of the Black Drake; but I digress.)

The builds for these rogues were, as Penny Arcade alluded, pretty straightforward, and rarely varied. And did their jobs well. But I didn't play a dagger rogue. Nor did I play a combat rogue. I played a Hemorrhage rogue.

Hemorrhage, the forgotten child of the rogue normalization process, worked similarly to the combat specialist's bread-and-butter ability, Sinister Strike. It cost slightly less energy, but didn't have Sinister Strike's baked-in damage bonus. Thus, it was generally assumed to be an inferior attack. However, unlike Backstab and Sinister Strike, it wasn't normalized. Thus, with a ridiculously slow weapon -- as rogues tended to prefer -- calculations indicated that it still dealt comparable damage to Sinister Strike. Perhaps a tiny fraction less, largely depending on weapon speed.

What it DID do, however, is put a debuff on the boss. That debuff in turn buffed everybody's combat damage against the boss. It was a charged effect, so you had to keep using Hemo to keep it up or it would fall off after about 30 swings. Thus, while the rogue's damage would go down slightly, the raid's damage would go up a fair amount -- presuming the raid had enough physical damage dealers to take proper advantage of the fact, which, if you played WoW around that time, you know was pretty much a no-brainer. Thus, it was a sacrifice, a decision; a choice. Give up some solo damage efficacy, help the raid. I made the agreement with my guild that I would be the rogue to bite this bullet, and we proceeded from there to great avail.

When I attempted to explain all of this in the WoW rogue forums, well, you can just imagine the response I got. The happy sunshine fun times that I get in this forum were nothing, NOTHING compared to the staggering insanity encountered by those brave few of us who tried to sell Hemo to the rogue community. Give up damage? A ROGUE? Stray from the standard templates? Perish the thought! Sacrilege!

Slowly, very slowly, the numbers of hemo rogues began to swell. And eventually, we established ourselves as our own niche. A unique niche, insofar as that we differed, so far as I was aware, from any other sort of combat class template: giving up personal damage for group damage. Not even utility; just raid-level damage in exchange for individual.

Hence do I present to you my counter-example: the NON-optimal build, which is also optimal at the same time. A choice, driven by a calculation, but still a choice necessarily. Oh, and the best part? Unlike combat rogues, who needed to put talent points toward a particular weapon style in order to maximize their efficacy, Hemo rogues could pick up any ol' rogue weapon, as long as it was slow enough, and still perform comparably to combat rogues. So they were actually more versatile, in that limited sense; while there were "sword combat rogues", there were no "sword hemo rogues"; just hemo rogues. Hell, I even used a hammer for a while. And that was utterly unheard of: a rogue with a hammer in the main hand. It was madness I tell you!

Now, I read back through my bloviating, nostalgic essay, and I try to see it all through your eyes. I dare to presume that you see the "choice" of playing a hemo rogue as simply a calculation based on a spreadsheet. That numbers compel the decision; no preferences are involved, no risks undertaken. You could argue that, reasonably. But I simply don't see it that way. I see it as a choice. Really, I see *obeying the spreadsheet* as a choice, since it's not always necessary to min/max to win a game. There are, after all, some few times when one really does want to put one's hand on the hot stove.

"

In short, dividing the weapons up actually adds a ton of value to the game, even if you feel restricted, which you clearly aren't in contrast to every other weapon which has a much smaller skill pool to select from.

I still don't see that value. And I further question how you can make this assertion given the fact that this division is not universal, even just within the scope of melee weapons. Why does the skill Cyclone allow the use of every melee weapon? What about enforced variety? What about the value of dividing the weapons? Why can't Ground Slam be like Cyclone? What's the purpose of making one melee skill unlike another, wherein one is a restricted melee skill and the other is completely unrestricted?

"

Your next argument will be, "why aren't ranged weapons restricted in an equal fashion?" The answer to this is simple; there aren't enough ranged types in the game yet. When more ranged weapons are added, the ratios will shift everything closer to what melee is currently like. Suggesting to restrict the ranged weapons now will only restrict a weapon type that already has fewer choices than melee.

I think actually you've managed to talk me out of it; I don't need to compare melee to ranged to demonstrate the inconsistencies within melee itself. So if anything, I'd like to see ranged also further united, allowing wands the use of all ranged skills.

Besides; I can still compare it to magic attacks. :p

"

Moving forward, suspension of disbelief is another reason you can't ground slam with a sword.

This is a pointless debate as it's purely about opinions, gut feelings and personal perceptions. I personally think it's perfectly plausible to allow a character to produce a Ground Slam with a bladed weapon. Ask Inuyasha (sp?) if he agrees. Conversely, I'm surprised you don't find it ridiculous that players can use "Flicker Strike" with a two-handed maul, or "Heavy Strike" with a dagger. It's lack of consistency that gets my underwear all bunched up.

I do, however, appreciate that you've taken the effort to distinguish between the two arguments.

"

In short, the devs are going to go with the majority when it comes to suspended disbelief, which is a proven and important concept for any fantasy world.

You aren't a dev, thus, you have no place speaking for them. Besides, the devs change their minds even about major game features on occasion. Don't make me link the loot thread.

"

Now, I do believe I have just about quelled any points you have put forward up to this point with logical, factual based information. If you can dispute any of this without blowing it off using sarcastic remarks or skipping it and instead by using factual based information that can be supported like I have, I will consider actually continuing in this thread with you. Otherwise, I'll assume you are trolling and most others will likely see this and follow suit in leaving this thread. Not trying to be threatening, but it seems like most people are getting pretty tired at this point.

I only ever respond in kind. When people are flippant to me, I'm flippant back. When people make baseless assertions, I expose them as baseless. When people claim to know something they cannot know, I call them on it. When people attack, I return the favor. Whereas, when cooler heads prevail, I politely accommodate.

It's often the case that people mistake staunch defense of a stance as aggression, or the sharp critique of an opinion -- and yes, this includes sarcasm -- as a critique of the speaker. This is unfortunate, as it signifies the beginning of the end of reasonable discourse. I for one *never* initiate ad hominem exchanges, as they not only fail to provide any useful argumentative material, but only serve to imply that my confidence in my own stance is weak and limited.

When they're initiated by others, however, I do have fun poking back. I confess this openly, with neither shame nor remorse. However, the very instant that my esteemed opponent petitions to terminate such exchanges -- it does happen, albeit rarely -- I immediately and willingly accommodate. That's a very important principle to me. Everybody deserves a second chance.

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I look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Likewise.