Q: Melee or ranged for Gala towers HC/N and FLEX Spolis and Panda boxes.

[Sonnillon]

Me and a raider of mine got into argument over who should do the towers on Galakras. He said all melee, I went with all ranged (in the end, just ended compromising some ranged, some melee).

Anyhow, can someone please list me some reasons why all melee for tower groups is the best choice (other then they are mobile and do more damage)? I am just so curious can any of you list better reasons for melee handling towers...

Specially in a group of 25-man people where you can select between 7 hunters, 1 shadow priest, 2 wlocks and 2 mages, while on the melee side you have 2x DK, 3x rogue, shaman and warrior. Why in the world would one choose someone other then the hunters for towers?

1 group for tower - is responsible for gob-squad defense in the first tower and clearing both towers and 2nd group - 2nd tower defense team.

I truly believe that (and always have preferred ranged for towers (unless I don't have any ranged to pick (on 10-man)) ranged DPS (hunters) are the best choice for towers as they can sit on top of the hill, defend the goblins and nuke everything below and are ready to move the second or bit before when the demo goes down.. While the melee will have to run up the hill (even if they start going bit earlier when demo is still up) loosing DPS time on adds.

On a FLEX PUG with average/below average DPS/healers for FLEX wing3, I got into argument with the RL about whether or not one should open the panda boxes on Spoils. I have always opened in all of my groups the pandas, even in low DPS groups and it has never been an issue. But in that group I got told that it's waste of DPS to deal with Pandas, while I still believe that is not and the buffs help out groups... And no, the group didn't fail cause of low DPS, they failed cause even the simplest thing kills people.... So will it really be a waste on low-end group to open the Panda's or not?

[thunderdragon2]

ranged for when the npc are opening the tower to protect them as for the tower grp its self my guild has a mix of melee and ranged.

ranged are best to defend the npc's opening the tower since when theres nothing htere they can help clear some adds below, melee have there advantages in the tower true dks can grip the bonecrushers, warriors and shammies have high burst which you want for clearing tower 1 quickly to remove the drakes.

as for spoils even in flex ALWAYS open the pandas anmd open them 1st as they give a dps increase for nukking the big ones

[Deleted]

Since you are talking about goblin squad I take it you are speaking about hc. Every class can do any job, but if it was progress, I'd let dk:s, destro locks, rogues and some hunters stay down, because dk can grip bonecrushers and hunters/rogues can tricks/md new pack to tank and start going full yolo at the first global while some classes need to watch out their threat, destro locks are just broken so I'd let em stay down because of that.

Shaman, warrior, some of the hunters and mage to tower while spriest, hunter and mage take care of tower grunt.

Putting nothing but ranged/melee to tower just because they are ranged/melee is just stupid and shows that raidleader doesn't know very much about the fight and what abilities he can put to good use from his raidgroup.

Killing pandas at spoils takes 15s, I have never even thought of not opening em.

[Deja Thoris]

There is no "best". Ideally you want people with good offheals to stay down because drake fire can hurt. You also need people with stuns. Thats my criteria, not if they are ranged or melee. I'd add that I'd also prefer more bursty classes.

The panda boxes on spoils are flat out a dps gain. It's never ever better to not open them.

[Senen]

I always send my melees in first tower because it's easier for ranged to protect the npc while still doing dps on the enemy waves, a melee would have to go back and forth a lot.
For the second tower (or in Flex/NM) I send anybody capable of doing it, melee or ranged.

[Qualia]

Range stay down, DPS the adds and protect the demolition squad. Melee go up the tower.

- Melee are more mobile. They can easily DPS while spinning around the mini bosses to dodge their conal attack. Only some range DPS classes are capable of doing that. For example, if during progression, my raid leader told me to go up the tower as a SP, I'd have given him the middle finger since I do close to no DPS while moving.
- Melee at the bottom cannot protect the demolition squad and DPSing the adds at the same time since they are more than 30y aparts.
- The drakefire do splash damage. It's less dangerous now that we have a lot more gear and DPS on the tower can clear it fast enough before the drakefire become a problem. However, during the first few weeks after heroic opened, even with Devo, I've seen more than one melee died to Drakefire splash damage because they are next to each others. It's a lot harder to spread and dps effectively as melee compared with ranged.
- Running up the hill (especially if you have lock portal) takes less than 1-2s. It's not even a DPS loss as they have to wait for the tank - who is also a melee - anyway, so it's not an excuse.

[Raiju]

Range stay down, DPS the adds and protect the demolition squad. Melee go up the tower.

- Melee are more mobile. They can easily DPS while spinning around the mini bosses to dodge their conal attack. Only some range DPS classes are capable of doing that. For example, if during progression, my raid leader told me to go up the tower as a SP, I'd have given him the middle finger since I do close to no DPS while moving.

The mini boss rarely even gets its ability off, even in progression. You giving your raidleader the middle finger for that when there may have been other reasons is immature.

[Qualia]

The mini boss rarely even gets its ability off, even in progression. You giving your raidleader the middle finger for that when there may have been other reasons is immature.

? The mini bosses get their abilities off every time during my progression - we are talking about heroic, yes? If they "rarely even gets its ability off", either you already outgeared it greatly when you reached there, or your DPS were a lot higher than us, or you are simply BS-ing. While the 2nd option may be true, I believe there are a much bigger chance that (1) or (3) would be the case, seeing they got their abilities off even during Method's "progression" (or any guild that killed it during first week heroic available for that matter). (Just checked to confirm that our melee DPS during progression wasn't that shitty).

Oh, and I give my raid leader the middle finger any time he made or was going to make a bad decision. Lowering a raider's performance for no reason is a stupid decision. Although, I guess there are jokes and sarcasm that paranoid people wouldn't understand?

[Raiju]

? The mini bosses get their abilities off every time during my progression - we are talking about heroic, yes? If they "rarely even gets its ability off", either you already outgeared it greatly when you reached there, or your DPS were a lot higher than us, or you are simply BS-ing. While the 2nd option may be true, I believe there are a much bigger chance that (1) or (3) would be the case, seeing they got their abilities off even during Method's "progression" during first week. (Just checked to confirm that our melee DPS during progression wasn't that shitty).

Oh, and I give my raid leader the middle finger any time he made or was going to make a bad decision. Lowering a raider's performance for no reason is a stupid decision. Although, I guess there are jokes and sarcasm that paranoid people wouldn't understand?

Every group sends up different amounts, and yes 'overgearing' is standard for anyone doing progression these days (but likewise their dps would be lower). I found during progression it was less than half the time we saw the ability actually go off, and usually if it did it caused noone to move anyway due to targeting empty sections for the first 1-2 and dying before the third anyway.

The second tower more often got the ability off, but even then rarely got the third and rarely caused anyone to move. Also in the first tower not sending a healer up but instead sending a hybrid (such as an spriest with VE) means that drakefire isnt an issue on progression anywhere near as much.

[Qualia]

Every group sends up different amounts, and yes 'overgearing' is standard for anyone doing progression these days (but likewise their dps would be lower). I found during progression it was less than half the time we saw the ability actually go off, and usually if it did it caused noone to move anyway due to targeting empty sections for the first 1-2 and dying before the third anyway.

The second tower more often got the ability off, but even then rarely got the third and rarely caused anyone to move. Also in the first tower not sending a healer up but instead sending a hybrid (such as an spriest with VE) means that drakefire isnt an issue on progression anywhere near as much.

Seeing you mentioned not sending a healer up but a hybrid instead, I assume you are talking about 10M? I can't say for 10M (as we only do it on our alt after clearing all 25, and our alts were all 570+ back then), but my experience in 25 definitely says a different thing from what you said regarding towers. Oh, and moreover, the drakefire has never been an issue for the tower group. It was an issue, however, for the bottom group since there are more people down there - it's most evident with all the "OI WTF killed you???" "F@#$ing 3 drakesfire at the same time, did we have Devo up?" during first few weeks for me. And my raid already sent most of our melee up.

[Raiju]

I am talking 10, and yes that is why you keep both healers down instead of sending 1 up - so the drakefire doesn't kill them. I haven't seen the drakefire ever hit the tower group, not sure it can or if the damage is negligible for some reason.

[Sonnillon]

Putting nothing but ranged/melee to tower just because they are ranged/melee is just stupid and shows that raidleader doesn't know very much about the fight and what abilities he can put to good use from his raidgroup.

Only some range DPS classes are capable of doing that.

I had 7 freaking hunters... plenty to cover tower and 1-2 to stay down (in gob-protect team)... I just wanted to know the reason why the suggestion for pure melee was best for tower, simple as that. I've been having that argument with the same person for a while now.

warriors and shammies have high burst which you want for clearing tower 1 quickly to remove the drakes.

You also need people with stuns. Thats my criteria, not if they are ranged or melee. I'd add that I'd also prefer more bursty classes.

It was an issue, however, for the bottom group since there are more people down there - it's most evident with all the "OI WTF killed you???" "F@#$ing 3 drakesfire at the same time, did we have Devo up?" during first few weeks for me. And my raid already sent most of our melee up.

These answered my question. Thanks.

[Tharkkun]

I know your example is 25man but we don't have a single melee in our core 10m group so for us the answer is all ranged. I being a hunter stay down for tower 1 with the tank and both healers and cover the grunt duty on 2nd tower. Drakefire does hit the tower group sometimes but they need to use personals.

Paladin tank goes up with ranged so she can heal herself. Everyone waits for the tank to lead for body aggro we follow up behind so there's no rushing up. 2nd tower we leave 1 tank and 1 healer down and send everyone up.


Spoils: I got in that same argument. We wiped due to enrage twice so go figure and the flex brokeup that night. The DPS buff is substantial and the healer buff does damage also. In our normal raid they were #2 and 3 from our kill on Thursday. Just shy of 27 million for both. Only melee from tanks/pets was higher at 32 million.

[Deleted]

Send all the warriors up so they don't just LOL BLADESTORM the nanosecond after a pack of adds spawn and get themselves killed..... god i hate our warriors.....

[Trubo]

From personal experience Ranged are better at getting the Bonecrushers to stop doing whatever their bone crushing thing is called. But yeah, if you had that many ranged who cares who got sent up the towers provided people were going?

As for spoils the only box that I've read about that can be a damage loss is the 2nd box in the 2nd room for each group but I disagree with that.

[Imbalanced]

(other then they are mobile and do more damage)?

Other than them being better suited for it in every way, how are they better? Is this your question

[Sonnillon]

Other than them being better suited for it in every way, how are they better? Is this your question

My question was some extra info added to the things which I got told by my friend, I just felt that a reason mobile/more damage is a truly shallow reply if one would send up all melee team.

But, as I said before most the guys/gals already gave me decent answers in why is one better over the latter.

[Soulzar]

IMO you want a mix of both. You want a few solid interrupts down below for Shaman and Fractures which are generally better suited for melee, and you want some ranged to protect engineers on tower two while tower one is still being worked on by the tower team.

When it comes to who does tower, there is no different if its all melee or all ranged, its who is left down below that is the more important part.

[Banchou]

Send all melee to the towers, the small space up there helps to cleave hard on melee range and is way easier to the MDPS avoid the minibosses knockback, the rangeds will do a way better DPS on the ground - every class have interrupts ans stuns from shammies and rangeds are better to deal with banner/totem.

And always open the pandas (without pandas = LFR, never follow a LFR strategy on SoO Flex or above...), always say to the tanks get Galakras near the NPCs (extra deeps on the big bad dragon never hurts), and make sure that all people know that the stack and line up on Galakras to soak Galakrond Flames aren't only for fashion. (Serious the amount of wipes on flex because that is ridiculous...)

[Raiju]

Send all melee to the towers, the small space up there helps to cleave hard on melee range.

This isn't really true at all. The archers are too far for most melee to cleave from where the boss positions himself in the center. You get a lot more cleave damage down the bottom.