Why is N'Zoth even a boss if melee exist in the game?

[Difuid]

Keydar from Dark Legacy Comics is a prefect representation of the theme of this topic.

Ranged are F'ed over just as well as melee. As more mechanics target them and require them to move, and since casters devolved back to turret specs they do almost 0 damage apart from DoTs during that. Plus usually have to move out of range of the boss, as in many cases mechanics leave permanent puddles of hurt and have to be placed in a real estate conscious manner.

[enderzone]

Keydar from Dark Legacy Comics is a prefect representation of the theme of this topic.

Ranged are F'ed over just as well as melee. As more mechanics target them and require them to move, and since casters devolved back to turret specs they do almost 0 damage apart from DoTs during that. Plus usually have to move out of range of the boss, as in many cases mechanics leave permanent puddles of hurt and have to be placed in a real estate conscious manner.

Problem is this is rarely the case. While melee has some advantages its very rare range are pressured enough for their restrictions to matter against players who react and think about their movements ahead of time.

[Jastall]

Not going to argue that rogues bring too much utility , but with an enhancement shaman you get:

on demand 50% slow (AoE and single target)
a hex
AoE stun
Purge
WF totem
Spirit wolf (not being slowed below 100% allows to cheese some mechanics)
ranged interrupt on very short CD
Tremor
Bloodlust
Mediocre offhealing
Also totally forgot about sprint totem and sundering incap

All classes bring something to the table, obviously there are heavy outliners (like rogues), but you shouldn't handwave all utility different specs bring, because they don't match what a rogue bring

Of these, I think the only two noteworthy ones are Purge and Tremor, the rest is a widely shared sort of utility, and that's on top of Enhancement (well, Shamans in general) being quite squishy with their lack of burst movement and poor defensives. I was exaggerating in my post admittedly, I know Enhancement brings more, but it's just not enough even compared to just the Brez that a Druid brings, setting aside the busted Rogues. Same for Priests, yes I know they have stuff like Silence and Mass Dispel that can be situationally useful, but other classes have utility that is always useful on top of good mobility AND survivability.

Mobility's another big one. Pallies should have 2 charges of Steed on a 45s cooldown, baseline, with something like Speed of Light available as a talent. That still makes them slower than high mobility classes but at least makes them less of a complete wheelchair and they have bubbles to compensate, same for DKs having both Wraith Walk and Death's Advance baseline and a talent giving, say, a second charge of the latter. Priests and Shamans also need some loving there. I'm not down for too much homogenization, but mobility is one of these aspects where the classes that have it don't seem to pay any price for it whatsoever. Rogues still have busted utility and defensives are with 3 DPS specs rarely lack for damage. DHs has great DPS and self-sustain (albeit that was nerfed in Shadowlands I heard) on top of a solid utility toolkit. So on and so forth.

[Majerin]

Yeah, let's make every boss melee friendly so we can just convert the other ranged specs into melee like SV hunters!

Guys, we need more incentives for players to play ranged, not less.
(or we can just continue the trend and make every boss a boring melee mong. train.)

I think this issue hits the nail on the head. N'yalotha was perhaps the most melee friendly raid possible; as someone who did the raid as both melee and ranged it is mind numbing how much easier it was as a melee. It genuinely felt like glorified patchwerk half the time other than slightly moving out of the way to dodge giant AoE effects.

Blizzard is stuck in a lose-lose scenario. More people play melee than ranged, which is not an ideal scenario. Therefore, they make mechanics ranged only to force more ranged representation in raids. However, ranged players don't like dealing with all the annoying ranged only mechanics (I mean, who would?). Therefore, more people switch from ranged to melee and make it worse.