Did Physical DPS get some massive tuneup recently?

[Kagthul]

(as an rDruid).

Last week, i was surviving one or even two physical dps on me - escaping, or at least living long enough to get peels.

This week, im getting exploded in the duration of a single 5 second stun by almost every physical class, even solo.

Was there some hotfix or something that tuned up melee damage?

Im used to ending the initital stun low on HP, but being able to get away/heal, and now im leaving the stun (if im alive at all) sub 20% HP (and that's WITH barkskin active).

What the hell happened?

On my warlock it is even worse. Im getting zero spells off before i die. Charge > half life > stunned > dead. I dont even get to act.

[Yvaelle]

They reduced all pvp damage by an additional 10% for awhile, but recently decided that made pvp too skillful - people had to land CC chains to land kills, squishies didn't die in opening burst cooldowns - so they reverted it: for awhile I had considered playing my Spriest (not shatterplay) this season, but since that change I'm back to my warrior and rogue.

Yea - it feels like a buff to melee (really it's a buff to people with passive damage reduction, which just tends to be melee - Dstance, Feint, Blood Presence, etc).

[Theed]

(as an rDruid).

Last week, i was surviving one or even two physical dps on me - escaping, or at least living long enough to get peels.

This week, im getting exploded in the duration of a single 5 second stun by almost every physical class, even solo.

Was there some hotfix or something that tuned up melee damage?

Im used to ending the initital stun low on HP, but being able to get away/heal, and now im leaving the stun (if im alive at all) sub 20% HP (and that's WITH barkskin active).

What the hell happened?

On my warlock it is even worse. Im getting zero spells off before i die. Charge > half life > stunned > dead. I dont even get to act.

Melee has been dominant since WoD release. Blizzard said they are watching closely, but no melee targeted nerfs (or buffs) have been applied since.

[ellieg]

They changed the catchup cap so now everyone can be fully geared as soon as they ding 100. So depending on what rating you play, every single person is now fully geared. Probably not that but it could be.

[dak1]

Melee has been dominant since WoD release. Blizzard said they are watching closely, but no melee targeted nerfs (or buffs) have been applied since.

I hear that said a lot, but I'm not seeing a lot of melee comps in arenas.

Top 2 comps by far at the moment are Rogue/Mage/RDruid, and SPriest/Mage/HPal.
In RBGs it used to be all about Boomkins, and now it's Shadow Priests that are doing huge damage and being stacked, alongside Aff Locks.

The class/spec with the most issues and complaints are probably Hunters (BM now, Surv before), which are also range.

Combat Rogues are still a little stupid, but something like God Comp can easily control them and they have been brought down a fair bit. Feral burst is still dumb as well, but again they're largely controllable.

I can think of a few comps in arenas that are melee only, but they're mostly tier 2 comps — TSG (War/DK), Turbo (Enh/War), and Smokebomb (Rogue/DK). There's more viable caster only comps though, or comps that are a mix of melee and range (LSD, LSD2, God Comp, KFC, Jungle, Thug, RLS, WLS, RMD/P, PHP...).

So I'm not sure where the idea that "melee has been dominant" is coming from. Maybe they're more dominant in lower brackets where they can just train a healer and win?

[Knolan]

Melee has been dominant since WoD release. Blizzard said they are watching closely, but no melee targeted nerfs (or buffs) have been applied since.

Only melee cleaves viable right now are smoke bomb cleave (frost Dk / rogue / healer) and TSG with monk healer (dk / warrior / mw monk) and after 2k rating the vast majority of games are WLS, RMD and God Comp / shatterplay or whatever it is called with a pally healer (Frost mage and shadow priest / healer).

So PLEASE, tell me HOW THE HELL is the game dominated by melee?

[ellieg]

Only melee cleaves viable right now are smoke bomb cleave (frost Dk / rogue / healer) and TSG with monk healer (dk / warrior / mw monk) and after 2k rating the vast majority of games are WLS, RMD and God Comp / shatterplay or whatever it is called with a pally healer (Frost mage and shadow priest / healer).

So PLEASE, tell me HOW THE HELL is the game dominated by melee?

Most people play low rating or just do bgs. They get trained by melee and feel overwhelmed by them and that's how they form their opinion. I play mostly melee and admit that they require less skill to do well on. Casters can perform better in higher end comps, but require more skill and coordination than most people have experience with.

[Deleted]

I hear that said a lot, but I'm not seeing a lot of melee comps in arenas.

Top 2 comps by far at the moment are Rogue/Mage/RDruid, and SPriest/Mage/HPal.
In RBGs it used to be all about Boomkins, and now it's Shadow Priests that are doing huge damage and being stacked, alongside Aff Locks.

The class/spec with the most issues and complaints are probably Hunters (BM now, Surv before), which are also range.

Combat Rogues are still a little stupid, but something like God Comp can easily control them and they have been brought down a fair bit. Feral burst is still dumb as well, but again they're largely controllable.

I can think of a few comps in arenas that are melee only, but they're mostly tier 2 comps — TSG (War/DK), Turbo (Enh/War), and Smokebomb (Rogue/DK). There's more viable caster only comps though, or comps that are a mix of melee and range (LSD, LSD2, God Comp, KFC, Jungle, Thug, RLS, WLS, RMD/P, PHP...).

So I'm not sure where the idea that "melee has been dominant" is coming from. Maybe they're more dominant in lower brackets where they can just train a healer and win?

I think you missed the point that he was complaining about physical DPS, not ranged vs. melee. LSD and Godcomp are the only really strong caster comps with LSD being actually quite rare. For physical DPS comps you have KFC, Jungle, Thug, PHP, TSG, Turbo, Smokebomb.

Finally, there are some viable caster/melee/healer comps but usually only for Warlocks and Mages. But overall I think physical dps is a lot more present in 3v3 than magic dps (yes I know there are some melee that partially do magic DPS), and the main reason for that is Hunters.

In my opinion the way hunters work is bad for overall fun and balance in the game, because they don't have the drawback of interruption and self-root while still doing ranged damage. And on top of that they have the best kiting abilities in the whole game even though they don't need to be on range as much as casters because of their uninterruptable abilities. With the removal of disarm they also only have stuns left as a lockout, while melee dps are vulnerable to root and casters are vulnerable to silence.

[dak1]

I think you missed the point that he was complaining about physical DPS, not ranged vs. melee.

Physical DPS vs Magic is an arbitrary and useless division. Most "Physical" classes do both Physical and Magic damage, and some can do pretty substantial Magic damage, and the only real difference between the two is armor, and even that is a fairly minor consideration.

Melee vs Ranged on the other hand is much more clearly delineated, especially in WoW.

Hunters are a Ranged class that it just so happens to have very few casted abilities that can be interrupted or require them to be stationary. The fact that they can do full damage at ranged (they actually have some of the longest ranged attacks in the game), and can CC/interrupt from range has far more impact on their playstyle and balance.

And the OP in their post also talked about "melee damage", which is the exact opposite of ranged.

- - - Updated - - -

So PLEASE, tell me HOW THE HELL is the game dominated by melee?

People saw more casting and Disarms removed and made dire predictions about the end of casters since the beta.

People who don't know better continue to repeat this as a mantra, even though it's been thoroughly debunked.

[solarfallz]

They reduced all pvp damage by an additional 10% for awhile, but recently decided that made pvp too skillful - people had to land CC chains to land kills, squishies didn't die in opening burst cooldowns - so they reverted it: for awhile I had considered playing my Spriest (not shatterplay) this season, but since that change I'm back to my warrior and rogue.

Yea - it feels like a buff to melee (really it's a buff to people with passive damage reduction, which just tends to be melee - Dstance, Feint, Blood Presence, etc).

That was a lot more than a week ago, and OP says he was fine last week. You just wanted to whine about people actually dying in group PVP.

[Raugnaut]

It was pretty explicitly stated at the start of the expansion that melee was supposed to dominate at lower rankings (pre-2k), with 2k+ being a mix of melee and range. Range, supposedly, were supposed to be better in an RBG situation.