Why do Blizz hate melee DPS so much?

[nnelson54]

It's pretty much impossible to balance a fight with melee vs ranged without it being a complete Patchwerk-style faceroll. Almost all of WotLK was extremely melee biased. Now they'll go through a trend where it's ranged biased, and towards the end of the expansion I'm sure it'll start swinging back towards a melee bias. This has been the natural swing of raids since TBC as they fail to find that sweet spot where both groups are equally challenging.

[Deleted]

regarding the 1st post, I've played a rogue pretty much exclusively for the last 5+ years and whilst I've seen Ensidia or whichever guild it was state the current raids are too melee-unfriendly, I've not noticed much of a change over the years.

Melee have always had to move, deal with AoE, cleaves, bombs, debuffs and whatever else. We deal with it and just make sure we keep on our toes. MC, Blackwing Lair and AQ were equally punnishing for all classes as far as I remember, BC had some tricky raid mechanics, ICC was far too dumbed down but also had plenty of encounters where everyone had to be situationally aware of what they were doing, and Cata seems no different.

Whilst I cant speak for other classes, rogues have more then enough survival tools at our disposal now to give the healers an easier time, feint, CLoS, vanish, redirect, evade, sprint, dismantle, kick, racials and our heal - all on relatively short CD's and vastly improve our chances of survival if used in a smart way. I've seen loads of fights where different damage phases seem to be timed exactly around your survival cooldowns.

I really dont want to insinuate that your players don't know what they're doing as you are weeks ahead of my giuld's progress, but is it even slightly possible that your DPS might not be utilising absolutely all the tools at their disposal to ensure they minimise the incoming damage?

I've not really thought that anything in this expansion so far (in my liited experience - our guild has only just started the new raids) that says to me that the difficulty has increased by a huge margin. My dps is very competitive compared to the ranged guys currently in heroics and raids, I maximise it fully on melee friendly fights and thats compensated for when the ragned friendly encounters appear. Some of the new mechanics (jumping to avoid AoE) are new, and not obvious, but most of the others just remind me of a time when the game was just plain hard, and if you didnt evolve you died fast and often until you overgeared.

Maybe when we get to the heroic modes there will be a big difference to the Uld and ICC heroic mechanics, but so far overall it appears to be business as usual.

[Deleted]

Which parts of Wrath favored Melee? Here's a list. Let's start from Ulduar Hardmodes and Heroic Modes onlysince Naxx was a joke and I can hardly remember what the fights were like on normal.

"Ulduar:
- Ignis: Melee just sat on the boss the whole time with no further responsibility, as opposed to at least one ranged requiring to switch off to an add in the early days."

So to sum it up it was easier for mele since they could not kill the adds?

"XT002: Out of melee range for a few seconds to drop debuffs, buff ranged had the responsibility of dealing with scrap adds during the first heart phase AND sparks, losing boss uptime and rampup time."
"Kologarn: Melee did absolutely nothing except hit the boss. melee were not targeted with eye beams nor did they have to switch to aoe the rock elementals.
- Auriaya: Melee sat on the boss. Adds were offtanked and not dealt damage. Ranged AoE'd down the swarm."

Same here the encounters does not favor mele since if you would just stack range and it would only make it easier the only draw back would be loot.

"Marrowgar: Ranged oriented due to ability to continue attacking during BOOOONE STTOOORRM. But within a few months the melee could chase after the Heroic Bone Storm anyway."

Well when you start to both outgear and get the 30% buff then yeah, before when the encounter was new no.

"- Saurfang: Complete melee fight. Melee did absolutely nothing except try to world rank."

And how does this mean it favors mele? if you would just bring more range then some of the range could stay on the boss 24/7.

[Seekzor]

Tombking does take up a viable point, often melees could be totally swapped out (the expection would be interupt bosses).

[Tatertotz]

i'm seeing a lot of BLAH BLAH BLAH. I get it...raiding is tough, but who cares. Its not like Blizz is going to balance/retune any fight currently out. Could they possibly take into consideration what you are saying now for future encounters, maybe, but that content patch is not coming anytime soon. If you really wanna complain, don't do so at Blizz, do so at the peeps who played in the beta, who were a part in tuning and retuning the fights before they went live. All in all this thread really serves no purpose but to moan and complain, and cause discontent among the different DPS classes (and the underlining raiding is to hard). So before all the hate responses i.e. he plays blah blah blah, and he's got it easy cause he is blah blah blah, i play a resto druid, and yes it is tough, but i welcome the challenge, and you all should to.

[Deleted]

Well melee got pvp atm... and there is allways going to be unbalanced. Just stop the whining and deal with it.

[Deleted]

It's not just raids, as a healer I've noticed that Melee take far more damage than Ranged in pretty much every instance, too.

I have also noticed this so much, the more melee a party has the more annoying the heroic is.

I don't think Blizzard hate melee but I do think that even though some fithts will always be better or worse for cetain roles, too many fights up to now have been too melee unfriendly.

There are a few people saying that it should be like this because WotLK was more melee friendly, I can't think of anything more selfish. It's like the people who think Arcane Mages and Ret Pallies should be completely unplayable just because they were OP at some point.

[Mammoth]

Its pretty much true, you can never have too much ranged, but having too much melee is an issue. Without trivialising bosses, what solutions are there?

1, Special debuffs that only apply to casters - usually this has penalised the healers if enough casters aren't there, so it should be done this time without that penalty. Something like your attacks are redirected to the tank.
2, Mana pulls / mana burns.
3, Magic resistance until physical damage has destoyed some shield. Have adds up at the same time to occupy casters.
4, Frequent movement. Casters struggle to dps when moving.

These are my suggestions.

[snegro]

It really is terribly biased at the moment - more and more serious raiding guilds are benching melee classes for hard modes (hello).

[Deleted]

i don't understand any of your concerns. we're currently raiding 25 mans and the melee are generally the highest dps, both in aoe and boss fight situations; even with all the moving around. melee bad at aoe? pleeeease. frost dks are insane at the moment. warriors aren't bad either and rogues are also pretty sick if they know what they're doing.

as well as that, they provide the vital and short cooldown interrupts that many of the fights do need. sure, they may need to pay more attention and move out of aoe shit and manoeuvre around the boss, but to an extent, so do ranged.

seems to me that you're bitching for the sake of bitching.

[Mammoth]

i don't understand any of your concerns. we're currently raiding 25 mans and the melee are generally the highest dps, both in aoe and boss fight situations; even with all the moving around. melee bad at aoe? pleeeease. frost dks are insane at the moment. warriors aren't bad either and rogues are also pretty sick if they know what they're doing.

as well as that, they provide the vital and short cooldown interrupts that many of the fights do need. sure, they may need to pay more attention and move out of aoe shit and manoeuvre around the boss, but to an extent, so do ranged.

seems to me that you're bitching for the sake of bitching.

It is a valid concern. Your 25man could certainly not take pure melee dps, and the problem is even more accute in 10man, where you should have at least 3 ranged dps. If you have pure melee dps effects like chain lightning will kill you all or at least make healing harder than it should be. Another effect is Magmaw, you have to range aoe adds, if you go melee they will kill you. Ranged dps are mandatory, melee are optional.

As for fast interrupts an elemental shaman is the best class around, it has short CD and can interrupt by focus macro. Your raid will either need a shaman or a melee. This is the only encouragement to melee.

[Garbles]

going by what ive downed so far....

Magmaw: Melee
Defence system: Balanced
Mal: Ranged
Atremedes: Arguably Ranged but ill say Balanced
Chimaeron: Balanced

Halfus: Balanced
Valiona: Slightly more melee
Acendant Council: Balanced

Conclave of four Winds: Balanced

[Paulosio]

I agree with the general point of your post and most of the examples you gave but the sonic circles on atramedes are definitely not harder for melee to avoid. Yes you are nearer to where they spawn but they don't start moving for 1-2 seconds and you know exactly where to move to avoid them. As a ranged you often have to run further to avoid them or you have to wait for them to start moving to see exactly which direction they are moving before you can move to avoid them. They are incredibly easy to avoid for everyone. A few of the other examples are a bit iffy too.

[Sugar275]

I agree with the general point of your post and most of the examples you gave but the sonic circles on atramedes are definitely not harder for melee to avoid.

Indeed, Atramedes has a huge hitbox so you should be no where near them..
What I've seen on my enhance is most fights do favor ranged but it's always been this way since BWL and MC.
You certainly cannot have more than 2-3 melee though.

[Deleted]

Totally agree with you Op

[Draknalor186]

agree with the Op

[Deleted]

Whilst I cant speak for other classes, rogues have more then enough survival tools at our disposal now to give the healers an easier time, feint, CLoS, vanish, redirect, evade, sprint, dismantle, kick, racials and our heal - all on relatively short CD's and vastly improve our chances of survival if used in a smart way. I've seen loads of fights where different damage phases seem to be timed exactly around your survival cooldowns.

I'm also a rogue and i know when to use my cds but still you get way more dammage then any ranged, also evade and dismantle doesn't work in most cases. If you are using your combo points to heal yourself they should probably just replace you, sorry to say but dps still matter and most of the time that should be your job and not using all your combopoints to selfheal.

i don't understand any of your concerns. we're currently raiding 25 mans and the melee are generally the highest dps, both in aoe and boss fight situations; even with all the moving around. melee bad at aoe? pleeeease. frost dks are insane at the moment. warriors aren't bad either and rogues are also pretty sick if they know what they're doing.

as well as that, they provide the vital and short cooldown interrupts that many of the fights do need. sure, they may need to pay more attention and move out of aoe shit and manoeuvre around the boss, but to an extent, so do ranged.

seems to me that you're bitching for the sake of bitching.

Yep your right, most of the raids only takes melee to interupt things and that's it. In most fights it's just better to take a ranged, especialy when healers have a hard time atm.

Sorry for my English but it's my 3rd language.

[Devlin1991]

going by what ive downed so far....

Magmaw: Melee
Defence system: Balanced
Mal: Ranged
Atremedes: Arguably Ranged but ill say Balanced
Chimaeron: Balanced

Halfus: Balanced
Valiona: Slightly more melee
Acendant Council: Balanced

Conclave of four Winds: Balanced

...not sure if your trolling a little. Ill do a quick rundown of why the vast majority of the melee community are annoyed by the current tier. and why a few of the top guilds are benching a lot of there melee for ranged alts.


Magmaw - Melee cant attack adds due to the debuff if they touch you, bench all melee and the fight becomes easier.
Defense - Melee cant attack adds due to fixate, range can still dps if fixated. Rest of encounter is balanced, range get to swap far easier but need to deal with spreading for chain-lightning. Bench all melee and the fight becomes easier.
Maloriak - Melee can't dps if they have the frost debuff. Melee need to run across room during Green phase. Bench all melee and its makes the fight easier.
Artremedes - Melee can't dps at all during air phases + Tight enrage = bench all melee on heroic or don't bother as enrage timer will kill you.
Chimerion - Time spent running between players during execute is extremely range bias. more than a few melee and you can't spread easily. Bench all melee and fight is easier.
Halfus - Too many melee and you get pumelled by fireballs. Bench all your melee and the fight becomes easier. + Range have stronger aoe if you exclude unholy DK's(Demo locks,Fire mages, hunters,boomkins all dominate)
valiona - Range can attack both dragons for most of the fight, Classes that can dot multiples(spriest,locks,hunters,boomkins) completly dominate on dps. more range makes both the portals and the phase where you collapse for blackout(can collapse on range) much easier. Bench your melee for an easier fight.
Acendant Council - really can't believe you think this one is balanced. Bench ALL of your melee and the fight becomes a lot easier to heal in p3. range can sawp with no downtime between adds, can still dps with instants while running to Change buffs. Huge range bias in this fight, bench all your melee and the fight is cake vs having even 2/4 melee on 10/25.
Conclave - Melee can die very easily to the spores if the stun isnt exact. Melee have much further to run to get to jump pads and once they land to get to boss. Range dps with large hitting casts are much prefered for breaking the shield on Rohash.
Al'Akir - range dont eat the melee range Pulse. range don't eat the melee range aura from the sparkles. range lose less dps when running from tornados due to instants, p3 is a tad melee bias due to movement but is the easiest phase anyway.
Chogall - Huge range bias. can attack all eyes in p3 without moving. Can aoe the adds which melee can't due to corruption bar. can dot up the add where as melee cant. Benching all melee makes it an easier fight.
Nefarian - melee can't attack him at all during p2. range can dot both add and boss in p2. Benching all melee makes the fight easier.

Summary, There is not a single fight that is not made easier by bringing range, also not a single fight that NEEDS a melee dps they can all be done with full range group and each melee you drop for a range is making the fight easier to down.

An easy way to fix a lot of the imbalaces would be.

Magmaw - parasites have infinite jump range. If you aggro as range you get infected.
Omnotron - Fixate causes you to be pacified as anything other than a healer nullifying your dps.
maloriak - Melee can not get frost debuff, he now remains stationary on green phases(tank can just kite adds down to him just as phase breaks)
Artre - Flys much higher so can not be reached by range(rebalance enrage also). Sonic disks SHOW the direction they will go so that melee have more time to adjust position.
Chimaron - cant really think of anything Maybey add a 100% avoidance debuff and increase his run speed so that he kills x raiders per 10s instead of just a RNG fest like it is.
Nefarion - Increase hitbox in p2 so that melee can reach him if needed.
Halfus - Melee have a capped number of Fireballs so that there is always room to dps.
valiona - increase hitbox of flying dragon so melee can reach or Make it un-targetable so range cant dot it.
Ascendant - kind of hotfixed but the ice and lightning still kill melee faster, ice needs to not grow during Gravity lapse.
Chogall - Can't think of anyway to balance this encounter.
Conclave - Huge range increase on Spores so its A) Stun them B) everyone eats it on that platform. Also Run speed buff for melee for platform transitions.
Al'akir - Remove damage from the melee range interupt. remove aoe aura from the sparkles. in p3 give a "can move while casting" buff to range so that they are not at a dis-advantage.

[parkerlynne]

I'd like to point out that council is by far easier as a melee, at least how my guild does it. Phase 1 : all melee on fire, ranged on water, ranged must position to reach both so they can switch for shield, melee almost never gets waterlogged or knocked back by the fire charge. Phase 2 : still split DPS but ranged have to find their own debuff-giver and often can't stay faced to boss while going for instants, melee just gets dragged with the tank when he goes to get his debuff. Phase 3 : once again, melee just runs with the tank while the ranged scream at eachother over vent while trying to stay spread out and within range of the boss.

Also, your melee must suck because our bombass dk out dps's everyone on every aoe pack, its sickening really.

[CrunkJuice5]

Wrath greatly favored melee DPS throughout its course of raiding. Now it's ranged's day.

Doesn't really matter except for ePeen on meters. If anything it means you have less competition for loot as long as you find a guild that wants a melee for their raid spot.

doesnt really matter for people who are ranged dps ya.i dont wanna be sat out for raids because im a melee dps

---------- Post added 2011-01-23 at 06:09 AM ----------

Magmaw - Melee cant attack adds due to the debuff if they touch you, bench all melee and the fight becomes easier.

you forgot to mention the mass amount of damage melee take on that fight