Ranged vs Melee in 3.08 and beyond

[Alless]

As a guild and raid leader, I am becoming a little worried about raid balance. Patch 3.08 is looking like the 'melee' DPS patch, with ranged either being nerfed (hunters) or not getting the boost they need (Ele Shammys, Warlocks). Traditional 'optimum' raid structures will change - mainly to the detriment of ranged classes, and in favor of melee. Already i have seen ranged classes rerolling in WoTLK, and 2 more ranged DPS in my guild told me last night that they want to reroll. (Hunter and Ele Shammy both wanting to reroll melee classes) - Hence this post.

While the new Blizzard motto is 'Bring the Player. not the Class' - once you have all your raid buffs sorted, you next look at skills, gear and DPS output for your DPS choices. If we make an assumption of similar gear and skill - then we should now choose the most balanced raid.

However, certain classes will prove to be so superior that you cannot ignore them. In particular I can see Fury Warriors, and DKs staking a very strong claim for multiple raid spots, over traditional DPS classes. As the jury is still out on whether HAT spec is being nerfed, I will continue taking 3 rogues if possible, but instead of paring them with 2 BM hunters, will grp them with 2 TG Warriors.

Raid balance is an important thing... but more and more I can see the following suiting my guild

3 tanks: 1 x Protadin, 1 x Prot Warrior, 1 x Feral Druid
7 healers: 2 x COH Priest, 1 x Resto Shammy, 1 x Resto Druid, 2 x Holy Pally
Ranged DPS: 1 Boomkin, 1 MM Hunter, 1 Shadow Priest, 1 Affli Lock, 2 FFB Mages
Melee DPS: 3 Rogue, 2 DK, 2 TG Fury Warriors, 1 Enh Shammy, 1 Retadin

After 3.08 this would be a very balanced raid in terms of class balance.
Except its 6 ranged / 9 melee. To me that screams Imbalance not Balance at all. But I cannot argue that its not going to be the best DPS set up with the assumption of equal gear and skills.

Brutallus is a perfect example. Raid tactics were to have 5 melee behind the boss, outside the soak cone. I do not believe that sort of fight will be possible anymore, or it will screw with guilds raid balance.

Another traditional reason to take ranged DPS was the vastly superior AoE. No longer the sole province of Mages and Locks, and no longer a reason to choose ranged over melee.

Anyway, after this ramble, I am interested to see how other raid leaders see raid make up changing with the new patch.
Is the 'Bring the Player, not the Class' motto combined with the current strength of melee potentially one of the biggest changes to PvE since 40 man raids changed to 25 mans?

Luckily Naxx is easy enough to not have to worry about this. But will it be a problem in Ulduar?

Another concern is the strength of melee in PvP but from a PvE perspective. Since a lot of players enjoy both aspects of the game, and want to suceed at both, the temptation to reroll is increased. That is perhaps a question for another thread though.

[Drina]

As a Raid Leader and a Hunter I have similar concerns. Currently my guild never has enough for 2 balanced 10 man groups so I have to always run a single 10 man. The Bring the player not the class works to some degree however I will always try to take the top dps rather than a specific class of dps.
The concern I have is the DK, TG Fury warrior are now consistently in the top 3 dps with either myself or a warlock taking the other place in the top 3. In my raids I am often having to run with 4-5 melee and 2-3 ranged dps becuase those are the top dps players. Until fully geared the locks and mages struggle and even to some degree my hunter does too now vs the melee dps (I am only MM not BM). This concerns me that hunters are being nerfed because of BM so my MM spec which already stuggles is now going to suffer even more meaning melee dps will run away with it until every is equally epicly equipped.

I also suffer from the fact that too many warriors and paladins have gone melee dps so I now also struggle to get a decent balance of healers and tanks (4 out of 7 warriors are fury and 5 out of 6 paladins are ret!)
My one elemental shaman has switched to enhancement because he was very low on dps and is not very high as melee (a fact blizz have stated they are aware of and yet I see little real improvement to elemental in the patch to improvement)

[Gron]

"Is the 'Bring the Player, not the Class' motto"

I think you worry too much. Also you answered your worry with "Naxx being too easy to worry about class differences". Why worry about Ulduar when we don't know anything about it?

With nerf, its easy to jump the gun "omg I will reroll". Then when warriors will be nerfed, then they reroll to hunters? Its a constant change, those who play the game long enough know it.

I think Burning Crusade created too many meelee unfriendly encounters. Boss creates AOE you have to run out (mages go nuke while others run out) etc etc. Finally some encounters where they dont cripple melee dps. I think Ulduar will have a mix - some encounters might be a bit better for melee some for ranged. I think its unavoidable unless you want to create totally boring encounters. AOE trash down is cool - why leave ranged out?

I saw very good dps from mages and warlocks (gasp)!!! - I just think it needs more time effort/research to reach those dps levels (maybe not so trivial rotations)? Since Naxx can be cleared with lower dps, unless you go 3 min Patchwerk achievement there is no need to "bring the class not the player". I would ask some ranged to wait and see - Ulduar is not that far away, and sheeping or misdirects might be the only way to get past through some areas.
I am happy that melee is a good spec to play in raids. We don't have more than 5-7 melee per 25 man raid.

[Alless]

While I agree experienced players wont reroll as a knee jerk reaction, we are talking about people with 2 level 80's, and wanting to reroll to get their T7 quality gear now, while a lot of it is being disenchanted, and be well enough geared to get raid spots by the time Ulduar hits. I did read somewhere that the highest percent of DK rerollers has come from Locks though, with hunters a close second.

Maybe I am just being a traditionalist, seeing raid balance in a TBC way - especially in terms of boss encounters - but seeing 12-13 players along with a hunter pet or 2 clustered around Kel'Thuzad just feels crowded.

Perhaps increasing the size of hit boxes will make a difference?

From another perspective though - it means less people dependent on mana, and more space for healers to move around in.

[monalin]

Doesn't seem to be much of an issue right now. Warlocks and Mages are insane DPS not to mention SPriest fair pretty well as well. I'm not saying that they're better than a DK or a TG warrior or 3 rogues with HaT but all the content so far is possible with any combination of dps classes. I'd even go as far to say that 3 minute patchwerk is possible without having the "optimal" raid setup. Somewhere around 4,139 DPS on average is required assuming you have 16 dps and 3 tanks with the tanks only doing 2k dps.

Most classes are capable of doing over 4k dps on a fight like patchwerk.

Anyways the point i'm trying to make is don't worry yet. I had hunters saying they were going to quit playing wow before wrath come out because they thought their dps was going to suck. Lets wait and see what the changes have in store before jumping to conclusions about who will be on top dps. I defiantly didnt think that TG warriors and warlocks would be on top for dps when this expansion started, but they're doing exceptionally well.

[taek]

I don't think you're the only one feeling a surge of melee DPS...this was also mentioned on tankspot.

Has anyone actually seen an elemental shaman these days? They were everywhere in BC and i can't recall the last time i actually grouped w/ one in wotlk.

[Shaamwow]

I don't think you're the only one feeling a surge of melee DPS...this was also mentioned on tankspot.

Has anyone actually seen an elemental shaman these days? They were everywhere in BC and i can't recall the last time i actually grouped w/ one in wotlk.

That's because ele is not scaling properly and is a garbage spec right now, should see more of them after 3.0.8

I haven't really seen that huge of a disparity between ranged/melee classes in my raid in terms of dps. On tank and spank fights melee pulls ahead a bit, on fights that require more movement ranged classes do. Seems about even so far to me. I'm sure if you'd rather have more ranged the melee you could find a couple of willing ranged classes to come along to your raid.

Stacking melee can be great for some encounters, but terrible (even borderline impossible) for others. If the past speaks anything of the future melee dps will still end up as low man on the totem pole, and ranged will be what most people want to stack. If it doesn't end up that way well hey, ranged had their time to shine :P

[Accalon]

O.o? Fury warriors dps will increase a slight bit, deep wounds nerf, tg buff, glyphs are not retarded anymore... I dont see why it will be a huge melee patch, it looks balanced to me.

[Solux]

Elementals are getting buffed, since they're currently a long way behind, by around 20%, though I have yet to see these numbers supported by parses. Fury Warriors are complaining bitterly about the Deep Wounds nerf, so I don't see them going through the roof as some people are kneejerking to. DK DPS will always come through as somewhere near the top of the pile, with a talented player because Blizzard has just created them and wants them to be good and played well.

I'd be a little worried about your 2 CoH priests, if they're too reliant on that, like druids with WG, they'll suffer heavily in the next patch. I've seen a very intelligent suggestion to start playing with the mechanics, for WG as though it was already on a cooldown so you don't suffer when the patch rolls into town.

Beast Mastery Hunters are honestly mostering other DPS in good guilds. A talented BM, particularly with a well selcted pet and possibly specced for Readiness rather than Exotic pets is reportedly pulling up to 6k regularly, when every other DPS is in the 4-5k region. The BM Hunters in particular are not looking forward to having an chunk or two taken off their epeens. Data from the test realms has suggested Survival may be the new DPS spec of choice. If this is the case, then a Hunter is a huge benefit to themselves and to Melee with the extra crit on their aura. Maybe you do want a TG Warrior if you're minmaxing, but maybe you want a Survival Hunter or two instead for those people who would rather not change toons and go in geared.

As a Feral Druid, I'm seeing a few increases to my DPS next patch too, along with a nerf to Mangle. I think Blizzard are trying to eliminate the idea of stacking certain classes and avoiding others for Optimum Raid balance.

You're looking at taking with your new suggested group:
4 x Paladin
3 x Warrior
3 x Druid
3 x Priest
2 x Shaman
1 x Hunter
1 x Warlock
2 x Mage
3 x Rogue
2 x Death Knight.

Which is 24, since you have 6 healers, not 7, allowing you one more DPS. If you take a Survival Hunter instead of a TG Warrior, that's 2 Warriors, 2 Hunters and possibly an extra Warlock to boost your ranged DPS and keep the classes balanced, meaning 8 Ranged, 8 Melee DPS, 6 Healers and 3 Tanks and no less than 2 of each class, with only Paladins having 4. That seems very balanced to me.

[Craigadiddle]

Hi there

Would like to say that my guild is currently balanced in ranged DPS, with them also supplying more DPS as well compared to the melees.

We take 1 boomkin, 3 warlocks, 3 mages, 2 hunters, and normally is the rest Melee.

We have a DPS DK who will offtank if needed, doesnt need to respec (except for KT)

Also we take 6 healers, normally have 1 of every buff.. (we have no ele shaman tho)

[Razulath]

I'd be a little worried about your 2 CoH priests, if they're too reliant on that, like druids with WG, they'll suffer heavily in the next patch. I've seen a very intelligent suggestion to start playing with the mechanics, for WG as though it was already on a cooldown so you don't suffer when the patch rolls into town.

Druids will suffer less than priests, WG hasnt been a part of druid healing that long. Our 2 resto druids say that they like the change, back to the old way of healing.

[Deleted]

Yeap, this sucks. "Bring the player, not the class" is biggest bullshit ever, and was a stupid thing to do! I mean, since now everybody has the buffs, you can take 1 of every buffing class. Then, you must choose rest of the 8-9 DPS spots... And because they are all going for pure DPS, everyone as skilled than others, you are going to take the one that has biggest damage output. That's just stupid, why would someone take some other class that is worse in damage and doesn't bring anything new? And that's not the worst part, nono. This forces all the pure classes to go with only one spec, the spec that is doing highest damage. Why? Because there is no unique buffs in the other specs. Example: Arms warriors were popular in TBC because their buff (2% phsyc damage). These days they don't have it, it's not unique, and all the dps warriors are furys. Blows if you ask me...

Oh, and one thing that causes this is raid-wide buffs. Without them, we'd need more classes that are doing the same buff (i.e replesiement (or something like that), pretty many classes are bringing this, we could take all of them but no, we don't need them, one class is enough to give it to the whole raid), and it would be wise (not all in all - just wise. We'd still be able to raid with "player, not the class"- style.) to take some others than just THE DPS class that is topping the meters to the rest 8-9 spots.

Hope you understood, english isn't the best of my languages.

[Zao]

So? Content is easy enough that you can afford bringing the Mage, whom stayed with your guild since the beginning of wow, over the huntard who's a complete asshole but does 200 dps more on patchwerk.

Most achievements are perfectly doable with a non-perfect group setup, and I'd always take skilled player with slightly less dps (we even have an elemental who raids frequently) over a "push-one-button-and-do-4k-dps" class

[Razulath]

Bring the ones you like to play with, dps dosent mather anymore. Except if your doing sath 3d or malygos 5min.

We started doing 3 days clears of the content, just to get people in. 3 wings naxx thursday, early ending. 1 wing and saph/KT sunday, early ending. Malygos and sath on monday. Then we can have fun all week

[cerealK]

OMG

HAT is getting nerfed, and hunters will still be good.
DK's and warriors have been good, nothing new.