Lack of class diversity is why so few people want to play RDPS

[Yizu]

But my point was - that a TANK that is fundamentally as ranged class just makes little sense at all. A tank (balance druid fudge aside) is a melee class.

Can you possibly imagine a tanking spec for Mage, Priest, Warlock or Hunter or Shaman (that doesn't involve pets)?

Demonology warlock came close to becoming a real tank spec using a glyph.

IMO BM hunter shouldve been the melee class fighting upclose with your pet fantasy, and Survival hunter a tank spec. It makes more sense.

[Charnas]

Honestly I feel they should have gone with Wardens instead of DH for this xpac. Give them the two specs like you did with DH, make them mail instead of another effing leather class, Melee Tank, Ranged DPS.

[Yizu]

Honestly I feel they should have gone with Wardens instead of DH for this xpac. Give them the two specs like you did with DH, make them mail instead of another effing leather class, Melee Tank, Ranged DPS.

No a caster demon hunter that throws glaives once in a while looks cooler

[Deverick]

Not many people like to deal with mechanics. As a player who has played melee in the past expansions, typically you don't have to deal with as much as Ranged typically do. This rings true especially in Nighthold, I played Frost DK for the first half of progression and swapped to MM hunter as people started to drop out. I couldn't believe with how much more I had to deal with in regards to dealing with mechanics.

I think another point would be that majority of Melee classes have awesome looking sets,weapons, and animations. Not to mention a majority of melee specs rotations are fairly simple and will yield great results(not including certain specs like Feral with BT). I saw a post earlier in the thread that was talking about ranged dps in dungeons, I 100% agree with this. I actually started the expac as a balance druid and quickly swapped to my monk. That's not to say that these ranged classes can't do great dps but I think their is community perception that these classes are bad and are declined.

[l33t]

That's not to say that these ranged classes can't do great dps but I think their is community perception that these classes are bad and are declined.

Because they ARE bad? Especially for dungeons. You can take any melee (except for maybe feral) instead of any ranged (except for maybe hunter) for m+ and you'll net gain overall dps. Moreso, you can switch a good rdps with mediocre melee and still net gain overall dps. Why? Because melee rotations are braindead, while as a ranged you have to both do mechanics and deal with constant self-root casting shit, sometimes leading to long periods of time when you can't squeeze any damage at all because you're being forced to constantly move (gotta <3 those Volcanic weeks). While melees just tunnel for days, with having great new animations, awesome looking gear and almost not having to deal with any mechanics at all...

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

Read the OP. For the love of god. Like 1 in 10 posters he actually got the point the OP made.

His point is wrong though. Adding more tank/healer classes was supposed to fix the queue issue - but it didn't. Even if they added more ranged classes that could heal or tank, this probably wouldn't change things anyway.

He also didn't even prove that a significant amount of people play melee over ranged. A few percents is pretty meaningless.

[Tikishock]

I think the lack of ranged comes down to a few things:

1. Compared to combat as a melee ranged just seems slower and extremely boring.

2. Ranged specs aren't that fun to play. I love playing ranged classes and all of them seem extremely meh with maybe the exception of Shadow Priest and Ele Shaman. Mages, Locks and Hunters all seem pretty broken or not fun or do poor dps. Ele Shaman is breaking any dps charts but at least has interesting talent choices and visual spells. I want to switch playing from Lock to another ranged class but when I look at my options I just stick with my Lock. It's not like the grass is greener anywhere else concerning ranged.

If my raid group wasn't already melee heavy I would switch to a WW Monk instantly. That class is very fun to play!

I'm not saying buff ranged to godly levels so everybody goes back to playing ranged. I just think one of the few benefits of staring at cast bars over and over again while leveling or in dungeons or raids was that your dps was really good and you could top charts. In Legion, that doesn't happen so really what is the point of staring at 1.5-2.5 second cast bars all the time?

[rogoth]

Ok. I do not understand your logic and reasoning.

WoTLK introduced DK, which has a tanking spec.

MoP introduced Monk, which has a tanking and healing spec.

Legion introduced DH, which has a tanking spec.

That is three new tank spec and one healing added to the game.

Has queue time improved? I have not seen it so.

What makes you think making more tank and healing specs would reduce the the shortage of tanks and heals? What possibly more could they add that would encourage more people tank and heal?

Personally, the reason why there is a shortage of tanks and heals is the responsibility those roles requires. A mistake can cause a wipe while a mistake as DPS generally do not.

upon release DK's had 3 melee dps specs and 3 tank specs, it just depended upon how you spent your talent points in which trees determined whether you tanked or did damage, with each spec being good in different situations, blood was a good single target dps and tanking spec, frost was good for aoe tanking and aoe damage, unholy was a mix of both blood and frost where it was decent for aoe and decent enough for single target but had the added benefit of being able to offer damage reduction to magic damage, which at the time was unique to tanks as all tank classes at that point had no mitigation to magic damage they could avoid the physical damage but had to eat the full force of a magic damage attack which is something unholy DK's could avoid entirely.

- - - Updated - - -

His point is wrong though. Adding more tank/healer classes was supposed to fix the queue issue - but it didn't. Even if they added more ranged classes that could heal or tank, this probably wouldn't change things anyway.

He also didn't even prove that a significant amount of people play melee over ranged. A few percents is pretty meaningless.

and you clearly didn't understand the proposal to the problem in the first place, the issue is not simply add a new class that can tank/heal/dps but take specs on existing classes and change them into a tank/healing spec, or add a 4th spec where necessary to classes that can fulfill that role, like was proposed years ago making arcane a melee spec that makes mages into battle mages and can tank wearing plate armour using arcane magic to empower spells and "manipulate energy" of attacks made against them to weaken them and all that, or the other option blizz had with making a chronomancer spec for mages that revolved around undoing time to "restore" players to points prior to being wounded by undoing time and whatnot, part of the reason people don't take up monk/DH/DK (although at this point i wouldn't say DK as much as the other 2), is because they are attached to their main, and will unlikely reroll to another class at this point, the only time i have not played mage was in wrath from naxx>TOGC, i went back to my mage for ICC and have mained it again ever since, if i want to tank i play my DK alt but i couldn't imagine myself now main switching ever again, and there are many players in my position, so if i could play another role on my main i probably would, but i'm so attached to it i won't reroll, that's the problem here, not that new classes have been added that can tank/heal, it's that people aren't interested in playing new classes as mains anymore.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

upon release DK's had 3 melee dps specs and 3 tank specs, it just depended upon how you spent your talent points in which trees determined whether you tanked or did damage, with each spec being good in different situations, blood was a good single target dps and tanking spec, frost was good for aoe tanking and aoe damage, unholy was a mix of both blood and frost where it was decent for aoe and decent enough for single target but had the added benefit of being able to offer damage reduction to magic damage, which at the time was unique to tanks as all tank classes at that point had no mitigation to magic damage they could avoid the physical damage but had to eat the full force of a magic damage attack which is something unholy DK's could avoid entirely.

- - - Updated - - -



and you clearly didn't understand the proposal to the problem in the first place, the issue is not simply add a new class that can tank/heal/dps but take specs on existing classes and change them into a tank/healing spec, or add a 4th spec where necessary to classes that can fulfill that role, like was proposed years ago making arcane a melee spec that makes mages into battle mages and can tank wearing plate armour using arcane magic to empower spells and "manipulate energy" of attacks made against them to weaken them and all that, or the other option blizz had with making a chronomancer spec for mages that revolved around undoing time to "restore" players to points prior to being wounded by undoing time and whatnot, part of the reason people don't take up monk/DH/DK (although at this point i wouldn't say DK as much as the other 2), is because they are attached to their main, and will unlikely reroll to another class at this point, the only time i have not played mage was in wrath from naxx>TOGC, i went back to my mage for ICC and have mained it again ever since, if i want to tank i play my DK alt but i couldn't imagine myself now main switching ever again, and there are many players in my position, so if i could play another role on my main i probably would, but i'm so attached to it i won't reroll, that's the problem here, not that new classes have been added that can tank/heal, it's that people aren't interested in playing new classes as mains anymore.

Thats basically the same thing. It wouldn't solve the fake issue that the OP put forth. He A) hasn't proven its a real issue or B) hasn't actually succinctly proven his idea would solve the fake issue.

[Nero Stormchester]

My 2 cents on the topic. Even if all of the ranged classes could heal and tank, we would still see a shortage of heals and tanks. This shortage isn't because of a limited amount of options , it's because of responsibility associated with the roles. People just wanna stand there and do some damage. They don't wanna get blamed for tanking too fast/slow or for letting the group wipe or for dropping someone. Plus anyways I wouldn't exactly say there's a shortage of tanks , may be healers - sure , but plenty of people tanking.

[Niwes]

My 2 cents on the topic. Even if all of the ranged classes could heal and tank, we would still see a shortage of heals and tanks. This shortage isn't because of a limited amount of options , it's because of responsibility associated with the roles. People just wanna stand there and do some damage. They don't wanna get blamed for tanking too fast/slow or for letting the group wipe or for dropping someone. Plus anyways I wouldn't exactly say there's a shortage of tanks , may be healers - sure , but plenty of people tanking.

even when i agree (and i do), this is not what OP said. he just said there would be MORE ranges if they COULD also heal or tank as second spec. or in short: "more melees bc more melee classes with hybrid capabilities than range classes".

but maybe you give that statement without a direct relation to what op said. then its fine too. i just wanted point out what the op said, bc some here have somehow strange derailed what he said (even if you maybe dont).

oh and btw (since i didnt post something here till yet) i think op is right. in simple terms of maths, there must be a lower range part in game, when we use overall normalization (as op showed mathematically). and ofc this will always lead to range/melee imbalance.

blizz just select their classes and class design foremost with lore/style/etc in mind, not with balance. when a melee offspec beneath tank spec fits the style of a demon hunter more, they do a melee offspec instead a range one. even when they already have a thousands of melees.

i personally would more than like it, to have more than 1 tank class ingame (druud), with a ranged offspec. but blizz mostly see it like tank=melee, perfect offspec=melee dps. this is the reason why shadow isnt a melee spec (heal=range) or why palas and monks have melee-afine playstyles even as healers.

i dream of a class with tankspec (maybe even a range tank experiment), a range heal like holy, druid, etc. and a range dps spec. would be great. but blizz says nonono boy.

[Deleted]

His point is wrong though. Adding more tank/healer classes was supposed to fix the queue issue - but it didn't. Even if they added more ranged classes that could heal or tank, this probably wouldn't change things anyway.

He also didn't even prove that a significant amount of people play melee over ranged. A few percents is pretty meaningless.

Sorry to be blunt, but: are you actually able to read the OP and understand it? Seems like you and about 90% of the other posters here can't.

It is not about too few tanks/healers. It is not about whether players prefer to play melee or ranged. It is about there being very few rDPS at the moment (which I can attest to at least for the mythic raiding scene), because most players wanting to (maybe!) have a tank or healer offspec have to pick classes with a melee DPS spec. And the argument he makes is compelling and something that I have not seen made before. (Of course things like Blizzard only adding Melee classes as new classes also helps).

[Niwes]

yep. same thing (previous post) jumped into my eyes too. it seems ppl event dont really read before posting these days.

a little reminder here: if you just wanna spit out your oppinions or just wanna say ANYTHING, use twitter or facebook. but this is a forum. forums are made for discussions. and for discussions, reading is somewhat... basic. so plz... read or shut the fuck up.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

Sorry to be blunt, but: are you actually able to read the OP and understand it? Seems like you and about 90% of the other posters here can't.

It is not about too few tanks/healers. It is not about whether players prefer to play melee or ranged. It is about there being very few rDPS at the moment (which I can attest to at least for the mythic raiding scene), because most players wanting to (maybe!) have a tank or healer offspec have to pick classes with a melee DPS spec. And the argument he makes is compelling and something that I have not seen made before. (Of course things like Blizzard only adding Melee classes as new classes also helps).

Disagreeing with the OP is not the same as being too stupid to read the post.

The argument isn't compelling. It hasn't proven that we have an issue that needs to be fixed. It hasn't proven anything. The OP did not show massive amounts of players flocking to melee - the premise is there, but we have no proof of this.

People thought adding more tanks would fix the queue issue - it didn't fix it. So more classes with tank/healers doesn't actually solve anything. Tanking/healing is too hard or tedious for people, so even if every single class had access to a tank or healer spec, it wouldn't solve anything.

[netherflame]

I just really hate that I have to stop to cast, its ok for somethings but having no mobility and doing the same/less damage then classes that are completely based on instant attacks is pretty frustrating. Everytime I look at my raids logs I get bummed because of the difference between 99th percentile on our melees vs 99th percentile on our casters, last night it was 150k difference between fury warrior 99th percentile and ele shaman 96th percentile with 2 ilvl difference in favor of the warrior.

[Kluian05]

I think the biggest issue with lack of Range DPS is blizzard has yet to add a new range class since the inception of the game. They really need to stop with the melee specs.

[Deleted]

Disagreeing with the OP is not the same as being too stupid to read the post.

It is if you disagree with something he has not even touched on.

The argument isn't compelling. It hasn't proven that we have an issue that needs to be fixed. It hasn't proven anything. The OP did not show massive amounts of players flocking to melee - the premise is there, but we have no proof of this.

The fact only one class that can tank offers a ranged spec and only 2 of the healers offer a ranged spec maybe leading to hybrid players having to play more melee classes and leading to less potential rDPS plaers than if ranged specs would be spread out a bit more is not compelling? Okay, why?

People thought adding more tanks would fix the queue issue - it didn't fix it. So more classes with tank/healers doesn't actually solve anything. Tanking/healing is too hard or tedious for people, so even if every single class had access to a tank or healer spec, it wouldn't solve anything.

What. Are. You. Even.Arguing.About.

Who is talking about queue times? WTF? Are you literally unable to read and comprehend what other people post?

THIS THREAD IS ABOUT THERE BEING (TOO) FEW rDPS

I begin to understand why it is so hard for some people to even play this game without tripping over their own feet...

[SupBrah]

Unholy dk should definitely have been ranged. That would have given plate int gear that was solely reserved for pally at the time, another possible use. It also works better with warcraft 2 lore and the original dk units being casters.

Unholy was basically a melee/RDPS hybrid when Blizz introduced Clawing Shadows (the most fun I had with a spec in ages), but everyone started kicking and screaming like they always do when DKs get one nice thing (because we were super OP for like a month at the start of WotLK) sooo of course blizz nerfed UH to the ground...

[rogoth]

Disagreeing with the OP is not the same as being too stupid to read the post.

The argument isn't compelling. It hasn't proven that we have an issue that needs to be fixed. It hasn't proven anything. The OP did not show massive amounts of players flocking to melee - the premise is there, but we have no proof of this.

People thought adding more tanks would fix the queue issue - it didn't fix it. So more classes with tank/healers doesn't actually solve anything. Tanking/healing is too hard or tedious for people, so even if every single class had access to a tank or healer spec, it wouldn't solve anything.

actually if every class in the game could tank/heal/dps and you were able to maintain how the pure dps classes work right now on top of that so you didn't lose that functionality, i can guarantee you that there would be absolutely no shortage of tanks/healers in the game, i would happily stick my neck out and say that a large portion of players are like me who enjoy tanking, but are unwilling to play something that is not their main for several reasons, main one in legion is the ridiculous mammoth grind for AP or the rng clusterfuck of legendaries etc, but even that wasn't an issue it's not the gameplay or the responsibility factor that is stopping many players, it is the fact they have emotionally invested so much time on a main character that can't tank/dps and they simply do not want to drop it for whatever reason, so in this regard of course adding new classes that can fill these roles didn't help because they didn't actually address that very real problem in the first place.

[PraisCthulhu]

But my point was - that a TANK that is fundamentally as ranged class just makes little sense at all. A tank (balance druid fudge aside) is a melee class.

Can you possibly imagine a tanking spec for Mage, Priest, Warlock or Hunter or Shaman (that doesn't involve pets)?

NO. Well, maybe Shaman - but making it a druid in effect.

Can you imagine a tanking spec for a Rogue.

Of course you could.

I'm not saying *every* class should have a tank spec. I think the idea of a priest tank spec is ridiculous. But they already have 2 heal specs so they have some versatility already. I can imagine a Warlock tank spec that doesn't use a pet. Not even all Warlock DPS specs use a pet thanks to GoSac. Same with mage. Using spells to protect yourself. I can even imagine a Survival Hunter/Lone Wolf tank spec that doesn't use a pet. I mean, we have leather wearing agility tanks with no pet, why not a mail (which is heavier armor than leather) agility tank?

Honestly your argument holds up best for the cloth wearing Mage/Warlock classes. But I think they could still make that work. It would simply involve a passive "aura" that reduces damage taken that scaled with your int. For mages make Arcane Barrier a passive. For warlocks, buff the shit out of Soul Link when in tank spec.