How many melee?

[Delana]

My guild and I are coming back to raiding for WoD after being out of it since Firelands. This topic came up, and I'm interested in hearing what people here are thinking.

In firelands I would have felt comfortable with 6-7 melee. Anything higher felt like you were handcuffing yourself a bit strategically because of positioning and in terms of unavoidable raid damage on the melee. This was even with what I would consider my best raiders in melee positions. I gather that MoP was, if anything, maybe even more melee unfriendly.


I guess my questions are:

How many melee do you think will be appropriate in a mythic raid?

What's the MINIMUM melee you'd want to take? keeping in mind loot distribution (with weapons at least in WoD) and interrupts/raid utility.

Do you feel any of the melee classes are particularly handicapped? (In that they don't have the tools to handle the extra headache of being in melee).

Thanks for the input guys.

Del

[Raiju]

Hard to say before number tuning. Some melees utility such as shamans is based on the healing they can put out really - which right now isn't really worth considering. A specs utilty may end up trivial but their dps might be top, making them more valuable through dps alone.


Minimum melee I'd want to take is probably 2 generally, 0 if fights turn out ranged favoured (kills > guaranteed MS upgrades).

Interrupts have been a non-issue throughout MoP and I don't see that changing in a fixed 20man.

[NickCageFanatic]

Minimum melee I'd want to take is probably 2 generally, 0 if fights turn out ranged favoured (kills > guaranteed MS upgrades).

Please don't tell me this is another "Melee put the group at a huge disadvantage" posts.
Seriously, a good melee dps is worth having in your raid over someone who is mediocre as a ranged dps. Healing should never be an issue as good players know where and when to stand to avoid damage.

Back to the topic. I'd say it's the typical mix of range and melee dps.
2 tanks
4-5 healers
13-14 dps

[Raiju]

Please don't tell me this is another "Melee put the group at a huge disadvantage" posts.
Seriously, a good melee dps is worth having in your raid over someone who is mediocre as a ranged dps. Healing should never be an issue as good players know where and when to stand to avoid damage.

Back to the topic. I'd say it's the typical mix of range and melee dps.
2 tanks
4-5 healers
13-14 dps

A good player is worth having in your raid over someone who is mediocre - and for every good melee there's a good ranged, and for every good melee who isn't willing to switch there is one who will be willing.

[Darkfriend]

My 25m runs with ~1 shamans, 1 ret, 2-3 rogues, 2 warriors, 1 WW, 1 DK, 1-2 feral.

Not all will be in on every fight. Only fight we ask melee to sit if they want is Malkorak.

[Deleted]

Going with a standard 2 tank, 4 healers(on bosses that matter), 14 dps lineup, I would say 5-6 melee at most(I consider 6 melee an insane amount in 20 man mythic). Minimum would be 1/2-0 ofc(which probably won't happen in the first tier ofc, but is going to happen whenever a fight favors ranged greatly)

[Captainn]

My guild and I are coming back to raiding for WoD after being out of it since Firelands. This topic came up, and I'm interested in hearing what people here are thinking.

In firelands I would have felt comfortable with 6-7 melee. Anything higher felt like you were handcuffing yourself a bit strategically because of positioning and in terms of unavoidable raid damage on the melee. This was even with what I would consider my best raiders in melee positions. I gather that MoP was, if anything, maybe even more melee unfriendly.


I guess my questions are:

How many melee do you think will be appropriate in a mythic raid?

What's the MINIMUM melee you'd want to take? keeping in mind loot distribution (with weapons at least in WoD) and interrupts/raid utility.

Do you feel any of the melee classes are particularly handicapped? (In that they don't have the tools to handle the extra headache of being in melee).

Thanks for the input guys.

Del

If things dont change the only melee worth bringing to progression are rogues. It wasn't a detriment to take other melee, but in particular in ten man rogues just brought so much self-survivability that no other classes except maybe Warlocks could compete. Hopefully in Warlords we see more balance between casters/melee --- I think we will considering they are cutting down on movement based casting. But we will see after numbers tuning. As of right now anything is open to interpretation. I really wish they'd get to numbers tuning...

[Gestopft]

1. Seriously, a good melee dps is worth having in your raid over someone who is mediocre as a ranged dps.

2. Healing should never be an issue as good players know where and when to stand to avoid damage.

1. Obvious statement. What if the melee and ranged player are equal? For a long time the answer has been almost always been ranged.

2. It's also much easier to find a safe place to stand when you are ranged. Melee have to balance uptime loss versus damage taken much more.

OT: I would think that the answer depends on how much movement the fights require, and how much DPS the casters end up losing due to movement in WoD.

[Deleted]

2 tanks
4 healers
10 Range
4 Melee?

Maybe 1-2 variations between Melee and Range maybe?

[Tyrgannus]

One of my biggest issues with fights getting more complex in later expansions is the fact that it tends to affect melee dps more than range dps, however you can't just nerf ranged dps in the ground because they have to at least pretend to balance PvP as well. I am actually really glad I don't work at Blizzard because tuning would be a nightmare of a headache.

[Tekkommo]

5 at most, melee usually get fucked over ...

Good melee can avoid damage, it's just that when you bring too much melee it usually makes avoiding damage impossible.

[Deleted]

how is this not a priority for blizzard to fix? it should be equal, melee have a shit time as it is with boss mechanics but now to find a guild who actually need melee..yeah good luck

[Genju]

how is this not a priority for blizzard to fix? it should be equal, melee have a shit time as it is with boss mechanics but now to find a guild who actually need melee..yeah good luck

They are trying to fix (to some degree) it by nerfing ranges ability to cast while walking.

[Varabently]

Please don't tell me this is another "Melee put the group at a huge disadvantage" posts.
Seriously, a good melee dps is worth having in your raid over someone who is mediocre as a ranged dps. Healing should never be an issue as good players know where and when to stand to avoid damage.

Back to the topic. I'd say it's the typical mix of range and melee dps.
2 tanks
4-5 healers
13-14 dps

This is always an odd comment to me. No one is saying (I would hope they aren't) that you should take a terrible ranged over a good melee. The question is: given equal skill/gear/personality, how many melee vs ranged? Seems like an obvious thing you shouldn't have to point out.

In the past, melee have had less ramp-up time, easier times switching targets (think of a warrior swapping and popping sweeping strikes and whirlwind and such), brought interrupts which were sometimes required, were easier to heal in groups (chain heal spam!), etc. There WERE benefits to bringing melee, but they aren't as pronounced anymore. Now the issue is, with ranged being able full dps on the move in some cases (though arguably less so in wod), and there being more mechanics like boss moving, swapping, etc. that melee lose out.

I remember in the past when ranged had all cast time spells that melee could swap and kill an add before a mage had a chance to cast a spell. That's just not the case now with haste and instant spells.

More on topic: I would definitely bring enough to soak gear. For instance, if you're light on leather wearers or plate wearers or whatever, maybe grab a DK or a rogue or whatever as appropriate. I would also make sure you have enough melee to cover buffs/debuffs. Beyond that, I would say pick the player not the class. On my ret paladin I can save the day sometimes with BOP or LoH or negate a mechanic with bubble. There are benefits that melee bring, but they are contingent on many factors, some of which are realized and some aren't, just depends on the fight. I don't know what ranged have as far as damage reduction, but I have a 40% magic damage reduction that's up about 1/4 of the time and I can time it with mechanics sometimes (whirling corruption or whatever). I can heal myself somewhat if I have to.

Now I don't know how that compares to ranged classes or how that can be compared apples to apples with having more dps uptime and less reliance on range. I do tend to fall outside of melee range if I am not 100% on the ball with mechanics. A boss moving around can destroy my dps if I'm not on my toes. Ranged however doesn't even notice.

One way to fix that is to add another 1-2 yards on melee range. Would help tremendously.

Edit: I went a bit off topic, but I guess the real question is: what do melee bring that ranged don't? Imagine a group with ALL ranged dps vs ALL melee dps. The melee group would be severely gimped IMO. I don't think the ranged group would have any issues TBH. But some fights like Thok for example would be more challenging with all melee. It would be easier with all ranged. You could probably survive with all ranged dps, though you'd be fighting over gear more, thus it would take you longer to gear up, which could impact progress.

[cFortyfive]

From what I took away from testing till now I'd go with five. No idea how final tuning looks but for now I don't see a really good reason to pick a melee over an equivalent range.

[mstieler]

Please don't tell me this is another "Melee put the group at a huge disadvantage" posts.
Seriously, a good melee dps is worth having in your raid over someone who is mediocre as a ranged dps. Healing should never be an issue as good players know where and when to stand to avoid damage.

Back to the topic. I'd say it's the typical mix of range and melee dps.
2 tanks
4-5 healers
13-14 dps

I'd like to back up the "melee aren't a disadvantage" and would really like to see more melee-friendly fights like Siegecrafter & Heroic Protectors. Oh, the ranged are having trouble moving out of stuff? Guess what, bitches, that's what melee has to do just to dps. Get used to it.

I play Feral and the amount of self-sufficiency I can push out is just silly, while still doing good dps and not being in the various amounts of bad. There's also the combo point change for Ferals & Rogues in Warlords which will make target-swapping simpler for them.

If you have someone that understands that their class actually has tools to keep them from dying, and they use them properly while avoiding the obvious deathtraps and voidzones, you have a good melee dps. Once they know how to not die, then they can work on bringing up their DPS numbers.

[Fluorescent0]

I play Feral and the amount of self-sufficiency I can push out is just silly, while still doing good dps and not being in the various amounts of bad. There's also the combo point change for Ferals & Rogues in Warlords which will make target-swapping simpler for them.

For ferals, most likely. For rogues it's nothing but a quality of life change: we don't have to spend a GCD (usually while moving to the target) to cast redirect, and that's it.