Ranged vs Melee which is easier in PvE?

[Manthis]

Dragon farts stink so ranged

Think I found my sig. :P

[Deleted]

In 5.3? Ranged is easier to play. From the raids to the Brawler's Guild arena.

[Sparkidy]

Depends what you mean by harder. Sure, ranged have more mechanics to dodge as a general rule. But when you factor in downtime when target swapping, having a tank spinning the boss around so you're suddenly attacking from the front and getting things parried and blocked, or, and personally most annoying of all, having a tank drag the boss JUST far enough out of the fire to save himself, but leaving all the melee nowhere to stand other than directly in front or in said fire, I think you're left with a bit more to worry about as melee.

[Dole4011]

Currently my main is a hunter, but I've tanked for years and played on a rogue for 4.3. Plus alts and such.

Ranged is by far easier imo. I believe melee having less to do or to avoid is somewhat of a newer direction they've taken, presumably to alleviate a lot of the woes of the melee specs.

[Eranthe]

Ranged is easier and more effective in 99% of pve encounters in the past 5 years of raiding.

You can see what's going on, you have time to avoid things due to travel speed, you don't have to worry about someone right next to you screwing up and getting you killed (pulling aggro on cleaving mobs, blowing up a debuff right on top of you, etc.), and the only ranged that actually needs to stand and turret are shadow priests (who have dots they can refresh) and mages (who have talents to help them but movement still sucks for them).

Warlocks, boomkins, and hunters can either spam instant spells on the move or cast while moving. That makes "mechanics" ranged have to deal with sort of trivial. mechanics which usually involve making a focus macro and hitting it periodically, pink dino, cc'ing on wind lord, stars on algalon are a few examples that come to mind.

They can basically have 99% uptime on the boss, whereas a melee will need to run back and forth losing their precious uptime (which incidentally is why move speed enchants are so valuable for melee dps).

Melee traditionally had the benefits of 1: longevity (since they don't worry about rage/mana/energy in the long term, while ranged had to stop and recharge after a while) and 2: mobility (which used to lower ranged's uptime since they needed to stop dps to move out of bad), both of which have been completely neutered since no ranged class ever goes out of mana anymore and most of them can either move while casting or have so many instant spells it doesn't impact their dps in the least to have to move as long as they have enough brain cells to plan 15 seconds ahead of time.

i thought for a few minutes on how to format that sentence to make it less run-on'y but i couldn't figure out how.

[Deleted]

How is there even any discussion? Melee is harder by far. Also now that most ranged classes can do most if not all of their rotation on the move the only reason to bring melees is some unique mechanic of raid buffs/cds. If not for stuff like skull banner/amz/smoke bomb/... I wouldnt be surprised to see 25 man groups made out of only ranged classes.

inb4 ranged tank

[Mad_Murdock]

Nothing has changed here. Melee has not got better, unless you want to count blizzard slipups like ascendant council "the past". Melee has been the same since wrath. Taking more melee than ranged is pretty much never advantageous, and more importantly usually severely detrimental if you have more melee than ranged.

I haven't progression raided the past 2 full tiers as ranged, so I'm a little out of my element, but I personally find when I do play range it's so much easier than melee. I always ask the same queston, can we kill this guy with 5 melee ? can we kill this guy with 5 ranged ? It's normally No and yes. Fights like Tortas normal can be hard with 3 melee, I remember we tried once early in progression and I had to sit so we could bring in a range. Now it's not so hard since the 2 ranged we have is fairly pimped geared.

Heroic ji-kun, recommends 1 melee, we've done it with two, could be pretty tough doing 3 or 4. Heroic Horridon with 3-4 melee ? Unlikely unless you have it on farm.

But I'm probably a terrible player, one thing I like about range is I can see the whole field better. Melee,I'm stuck up some bosses butt and with all the flashy spell effects, sometimes it's hard to see those sand traps and poison puddles. Warlock green fire just kicks my ass, I constantly think I'm standing in a poison cloud. As range, I never have those kinds of issues, as I'm normally off to myself.

I like melee's style of play better, just some things I wish I could tweak.

[Fluorescent0]

I really don't get all the people going "melees are worse because you want to stack ranged". While sure, having rangeds is more beneficial, there's not a single boss where melee has MORE to do than a ranged in tot. Said from a melee point of view by the way.

[Pandacally]

After playing nearly every class in a variety of specs at endgame, I have to say ranged is remarkably easier. I've always loved melee more, because I feel like I'm IN the fight. Ranged might actually have to move once in a while (god forbid) and lose a cast or two.

Multi-classers are usually bad players, who have problems with movement and dps at the same time. Therefore, melee appears to be harder because you need to move towards/with the tank/boss, whereas casters can "stand still" and cast. Furthermore, camera angle and visibility often sucks as melee, even if you are not an unexperienced player, making it seem harder to follow whats going on. However, if it comes down to pure boss mechanics, range is more complex and can be at times very hard to deal with (while still making good DPS), at least since MoP, especially ToT.

[Raiju]

Multi-classers are usually bad players, who have problems with movement and dps at the same time. Therefore, melee appears to be harder because you need to move towards/with the tank/boss, whereas casters can "stand still" and cast. Furthermore, camera angle and visibility often sucks as melee, even if you are not an unexperienced player, making it seem harder to follow whats going on. However, if it comes down to pure boss mechanics, range is more complex and can be at times very hard to deal with (while still making good DPS), at least since MoP, especially ToT.

"if you ignore what makes melee difficult, ranged is harder" is all that came out of that.

[Mad_Murdock]

Multi-classers are usually bad players, who have problems with movement and dps at the same time. .

This doesn't make sense to me. The Top guild on the server something around world 70, I think just about every player shows 1-3 alts they play and raid with as well. Yet, you're calling them bad players because they play more than 1 class ?

[Raiju]

This doesn't make sense to me. The Top guild on the server something around world 70, I think just about every player shows 1-3 alts they play and raid with as well. Yet, you're calling them bad players because they play more than 1 class ?

If SoO streaming was anything to go by blood legion are absolutely hopeless on their alts XD

But it's a generalization that in lower tier will often be true. Someone who spreads their expertise out isn't going to be as good with the 1 class. This doesn't necessarily apply to movement though...

It isn't always going to be true, in fact you can't legitimately say it will often be true - as people who play multiple chars max level are in return playing more usually. They lose no downtime on their main more often than not. It's just a generalization that may sometimes be true.

[beingmused]

As melee, I would never have to think ahead about movement issues - you could just keep doing your rotation/priority system while moving with the boss, or while moving in and out of mechanics. The things that people have mentioned as possible problems for melee - being grouped with others, being closer to the boss - never seem to present the real challenges to me. If you want to do well as ranged you have to plan ahead for all of the movement you'll have to do.

[Nemesiz]

I actually gonna cast my vote on melee being the easier role to play here in ToT, due to various bosses. While most of em' are stationary, or are standing at the same spot for a decent amount of time.

I should say I play a Hunter in my guild. Currently 13/13 HC. I am currently RL in my 10 man guild. I have not played a melee class in ToT as of yet.

I find that more often ranged has more abilities to watch out for, making it a tad tougher to optimize performance-wise.

From a heroic perspective; (Easiest role by my opinion)

Jin'rokh: I don't believe melee's can be targeted by Focused Lightning? Vote - Melee

Horridon: Hands down easier to be ranged on this one. Vote - Ranged

Council: Ranged having a lot more abilties to be targeted by. Melee's having to uphold their interrupt rotation. Vote - Ranged / Melee

Tortos: Due to typical and optimal duties role-wise, I find melee has less stuff to do, other than tunnel the boss and swap to bats when debuffed. Vote - Melee

Megaera: Ranged has to watch out for a lot more as they're need to place themselves correct at all times for instant dispells / kiting of ice. Vote - Melee

Ji-Kun: Kind of even, but I do believe the slime pools are a lot more annoying for melee as they will have a hard time dps'ing while making sure they're in a safespot. Vote - Ranged

Durumu: Like Tortos, the typical and optimal roles assigned usually falls out better for the melee, as they tunneldps the boss. Ranged having Beams, Life Drain, Ice Walls. Vote - Melee

Primordius: Ranged tends to have to watch out more position-wise (Erupting Pustules, Acidic Spines) than melee. Typically a ranged class gets the add duty aswell. Vote - Melee

Dark Animus: On this one I have never had a melee on it. But if I was to pick one, I would be melee, since ranged has Matter Swap duty, one could argue melee would have Anima Ring duty, though this can also be done by a ranged without losing any DPS. Vote - Melee

Iron Qon: Imo much more equal boss role-wise. Ontop of my head Ranged has Lightning Storm. But I would still rate this as easier for ranged due to positioning for melee. Vote - Ranged

Twins: More abilities affecting ranged, Ice Comet, Crashing Stars. I find melee's can tunnelvision a lot on this boss, if not only tunnelvision. An argue could be the Tidal Waves being a lot harder for melee to dodge, if assumed Suen tanked ontop of Lu'lin. Vote - Melee

Lei Shen: Much more abilities affecting ranged, while melee have next to nothing. Vote - Melee

Ra-Den: Although an easy fight with this high gearlevels after item upgrades, I'd say it's even, depending on tactics. (Melee tanking add outside raid). Vote - Neither.


This is how I see it from a 10 man HC raiding perspective, while typically only 1 melee on each boss. 2 melees on some fights could easily tip the scale and favor ranged more.

[AutomaticBadger]

This just seems to be a ranged trying to get a so is me response. I'm not saying ranged isn't without issues but melee need to close on the boss to do anything, they suck flat put on movement fights lIke zinoth and if bad shit happens on the floor near us it is a case of babyjesus everyone run for cover since we all end up stacked to high hell.

[Mad_Murdock]

If SoO streaming was anything to go by blood legion are absolutely hopeless on their alts XD

But it's a generalization that in lower tier will often be true. Someone who spreads their expertise out isn't going to be as good with the 1 class. This doesn't necessarily apply to movement though...
It's just a generalization that may sometimes be true.

I think the hard part here, is to say multi class players are "usually\normally\most often\51% of the time Bad". But what is bad ? A person in a world 100 guild probably thinks everyone else is bad, so if 99% of the people are bad. In that case, won't matter if they play one class or 10 classes. Personally, if a person is good enough to be 12/12 then I don't count them as bad (I, of course, fall into that group). If under that demographic we count multi-classer then I can say the majority of multi-classers that I know are not bad players. Again, if we can only count people who are at least 10/12 Heroic, then we're all bads so it doesn't really matter if it's 1, 2 -10 classes.

I guess we would have to also ask what a multi-Classer really is. If I have 10 alts, but really only play 1 does that really count ? If I play 3 alts, but they are all melee does that count differently ?

[Mataru]

Ranged is easier and more effective in 99% of pve encounters in the past 5 years of raiding.

You can see what's going on, you have time to avoid things due to travel speed, you don't have to worry about someone right next to you screwing up and getting you killed (pulling aggro on cleaving mobs, blowing up a debuff right on top of you, etc.), and the only ranged that actually needs to stand and turret are shadow priests (who have dots they can refresh) and mages (who have talents to help them but movement still sucks for them).

Warlocks, boomkins, and hunters can either spam instant spells on the move or cast while moving. That makes "mechanics" ranged have to deal with sort of trivial. mechanics which usually involve making a focus macro and hitting it periodically, pink dino, cc'ing on wind lord, stars on algalon are a few examples that come to mind.

They can basically have 99% uptime on the boss, whereas a melee will need to run back and forth losing their precious uptime (which incidentally is why move speed enchants are so valuable for melee dps).

Melee traditionally had the benefits of 1: longevity (since they don't worry about rage/mana/energy in the long term, while ranged had to stop and recharge after a while) and 2: mobility (which used to lower ranged's uptime since they needed to stop dps to move out of bad), both of which have been completely neutered since no ranged class ever goes out of mana anymore and most of them can either move while casting or have so many instant spells it doesn't impact their dps in the least to have to move as long as they have enough brain cells to plan 15 seconds ahead of time.

i thought for a few minutes on how to format that sentence to make it less run-on'y but i couldn't figure out how.

There is a lot of truth in this. While melee tends to have less mechanics to deal with, certainly that is the case this tier, ranged still end up being more effective because most of them have no/very little penalty of moving or dealing with mechanics. The fact is if blizz let melees deal with the same mechanics that raged have to, you would probably bring 0 melee to any serious raid, regardless of wasted gear, cause they would just be such a huge fucking liability. The restriction of only being able to damage things within 5 yards, when not offset by what used to be the caster penalties of movement and longevity, simply makes melees inherently inferior for anything but tunneling the boss and interrupting. Blizzard knows this and so they now design encounters for ranged and let the melees stand a dps, but of course still having to deal with the super annoying mechanic of staying 5 yards apart, IN melee range, on a moving boss to not take unnecessary aoe dmg (iron qon, primordius and twin consorts).

After playing a warrior exclusively since vanilla, I finally bucked and leveled a hunter. Should've made it a lock instead.

[Persada]

Tend to get Tunnel-Vision from range than melee, but range overall was a better experience when i pve.

[Deleted]

Iv got both a melee (fury) and ranged dps class (boomy) and thats still one of the most movement-hostile ranged and still i think that its a pain in the ass to play on the warrior. As someone said, ranged classes can choose where to position themselves to makes things alot easier while melees have to move with the adds/boss where and when it moves.

[Fluorescent0]

As someone said, ranged classes can choose where to position themselves to makes things alot easier.

Not completely sure what content you're playing.

Jinrokh, pool is pretty much a must. I'd argue this is the less costrictive positioning mechanic in the entire raid tier.
Horridon, on basically every door you want ranged to be between the tank and the door which is going to activate next, so that the tank doesn't have to run around like a headless chicken trying to get everything.
Council, pretty strict positioning for priestess adds on heroic, kazrajin discharge, frostbites, all with sandtraps thrown into the mix.
Tortos, avoiding turtles while at the same time being roughly everyone on the same side before each quake stomp.
Megaera, staying in precise positions to efficiently kite Torrent of Ice
Jikun, stay loosely spread around the border in order not to chain caw with someone else/melee, while paying attention to downdraft (less gap closers/sprints than melee)
Durumu, beams, walls and maze pretty much say where you have to stand.
Primordius, stay spread for pustules/acidic spines
Dark animus, stay spread in order to avoid linking golems, pay attention not to be one of the most external people if you aren't soaking matter swap, while anima fonts mess up everything
Qon, stay spread in order not to chain arcing lightning
Twins, spread for cosmic barrage during night and for light of day during day. Spores are much more frequent in ranged too.
Lei shen, precise positioning for ball lightnings, precise positioning for thunderstruck, precise positioning for diffusion chain during normal phases, precise positioning for bouncing balls soaking whenever they're cast.
Ra'den, whatever, it's the same for both melee and ranged.

While this is spoken from a 25hc point of view, where spreading actually has a huge impact compared to 10hc, I really can't see where you're coming from with your assumption. Strict positioning is pretty often required, it's not just a "stand wherever you want to stand". Unless you're overgearing content or doing easy content, of course, but does that really matter?