any advantage to having melee dps in the raid?

[Rude Hero]

I've been putzing around for the last couple patches in cataclysm- I tired of raid healing and took some time to see the revamped 1-60 and level some alts. I'm sitting here with an 85 of every class (except warlock rofl) and want to get back into raiding, this time as a DPS.

There are a few classes I think I'd really enjoy playing, and beyond that I'm going to get mercenary and choose the class that would carry the most advantages.

This has got me thinking about melee vs. ranged. I can't remember a time in recent memory where it was an advantage to bring melee dps over ranged dps. Are there any listed benefits of bringing melee dpsers? They generally get less uptime on a boss due to travel time and are less capable of kiting/add control. I suppose they have faster interrupts, but tanks seem to handle those nowadays. They used to have the cleave (free aoe) factor in wrath, but I think that was curtailed. The only thing my friends could come up was that 'they prevent strength plate and agility gear from going to waste/someone's off spec'.

I guess if there were a boss that continuously ran away from you at your character's speed then melee could shine, but I don't think that's really a thing.

Given all this, I'll probably end up going with a ranged class, but am I missing something?

[Martinussen]

i guess its the utility they bring with their class.

[Deleted]

a fight like rhyolith just without all the aoe and multidotting melee dps could shine (a lot of movement due to aoe you have to avoid, but a boss with a huge hit box so melee can stay in range to dps)

[Rude Hero]

Buffs & movement-heavy fights due to environmental damage, that makes sense.

[Kharli]

I'm melee dps but i'd have to say there is no real advantage, other than well better interrupts... ranged can fill the roll of melee dps.
---Healers&Tanks---
Prot warrior tank
Blood DK tank
resto druid healer
Paladin healer
Priest healer
--DPS--
Hunter
Mage
Warlock
Shaman elemental dps
Shadowpriest

there is a 10m group with no melee other than the tanks.
but yeh there is practicly no advantages, pers one or two buffs but that can be coverd by hunter pets.

[Thelxi]

Shorter CD interrupts and cleave damage are the first things that come to mind.

[Tziva]

There are certainly fights that favour melee but I think overall there have been more fights where it is a determent to bring melee than there are fights where it is a detriment to bring a ranged.

[Deleted]

Nothing. And if you look at the first tier of encounters for MoP, you are in for a surprise.

(Spoiler: encounters that favor 100% ranged dps + higher dps on ranged classes. Hey, it's DS aaaagain!)

[Rude Hero]

It seems like it's difficult to design interesting encounters without making them extra difficult for melee.

[autopsy]

and all of that is why melee classes appeal to me more.

There are encounters where you must spread or run out of the raid group which penalizes melee somewhat more than ranged
fights with fire / void zones making it harder for melee to stay on target
fights where melee need to move between targets whereas a ranged can stay on one spot

but its these sorts of fights that make playing a melee class more engaging. There are some encounter mechanics that work the opposite and work if favor of melee, such as fights where you need to stack.. melee are already there.

[Arhippa]

Nothing. And if you look at the first tier of encounters for MoP, you are in for a surprise.

(Spoiler: encounters that favor 100% ranged dps + higher dps on ranged classes. Hey, it's DS aaaagain!)

I think you're biased.

[shadowboy]

There is plenty of potential design space to make fight encounters become melee-advantageous while also having interesting mechanics (read: not patchwerk), blizzard just hasn't explored them very much.

[slime]

Melee dps does shine in fights blizzard implements to give a reason to bring melee dps. But otherwise, no - until blizz MAKES you bring them - ranged will always be better.

"They're onto us, they see our design is shit and are stacking ranged classes"

"No worries just put in some mechanic that forces the use of physical dps."

"Phew, that was a close one"

"Oh shit, wait, now they are just stacking hunters!"

[Blood Fox]

in one of the upcomming fights you get a bonus for being close to a moving leg, it will be easier for melee to stay in it than range, so there's one thing.

[Deleted]

I think you're biased.

I think a 20% AP buff won't fix it this time.

PD: Above poster, that same boss requires several ranged DPS to switch the debuff and do the kiting. So basically you can do that boss with 100% to 50% min ranged dps. Don't try it with only melee.

[Deleted]

Nothing. There's nothing a melee can do that a mage in melee range can't do, often better.
The harsh truth is that the only useful melee in a raid is called a tank.

(...)
but its these sorts of fights that make playing a melee class more engaging. There are some encounter mechanics that work the opposite and work if favor of melee, such as fights where you need to stack.. melee are already there.

Things like this are missleading.
Take a usual raid when you need to stack, you have every dpser and every healer that runs to get behind the boss.
Take a raid with only ranged dpsers, you have every one that runs to the middle of the room since that'd be the smallest amount of mouvement demanded to everyone.
Now, care to guess with situation results in the lesser raid dps and heal loss ?
There you go. Having melees is only a backdraw, it;s virtually never better to take a melee over a ranged. Only exception are class specific skills that trivialise a fight mecanic (ie: rogues on heroic theralion&valiona)

[Notho]

And here as ranged I was always jealous of melee for just being able to dps and (it seems to me) rarely have to switch targets.. Kill Green, bring down the mana void to 25%, aoe down those adds, three seconds on the boss and more adds to kill, hey how come the rogue did 10% more damage on the boss than you did? Start pulling your weight hunter!

[gemana]

Yeah, its more difficult to design an encounter that favors melee, but it can be done.

[Arhippa]

And here as ranged I was always jealous of melee for just being able to dps and (it seems to me) rarely have to switch targets.. Kill Green, bring down the mana void to 25%, aoe down those adds, three seconds on the boss and more adds to kill, hey how come the rogue did 10% more damage on the boss than you did? Start pulling your weight hunter!

While I don't exactly like that part about being ranged dpser, it isn't an advantage to the melee - ranged are doing it because they're losing less overall. If you brought more melee, they'd have to start doing the "rangeds' job", which in turn would be a lot bigger loss than if you had ranged dps doing it. A good example would be zon'ozz, I doubt all that many raids put their melees to nuke the smaller tentacles. One week we didn't really have a choice when we had maybe 4 ranged in our raid group, and while in my eyes it was a lot better (the things went down faster and so on), I'm sure our melees didn't like it.

That being said, I'm pretty sure you're better off with a balanced raid setup, with the exception of ascendant council heroic -type fights (which COULD happen the other way around as well, a fight where ranged are absolute garbage). Especially in 25mans.

[Deleted]

Melee have or should I say, had, better burst. Additionally, melee are used to soak in fights, you are there to take hits that ranged can't take.

Secondly, casters usually have to move, its hard to dps while moving, a melee can continue his rotation while moving aslong as the hitbox allows it.


And might I point out that melee has been very strong for a long time... if anything our dps is equal while the only real factor is moving -> hitbox.