Too many melee DPS?

[Lucavian]

Hey everyone!

So, I was "forced" to reroll to a ranged DPS. I was a Frost DK and currently I'm leveling a Balance Druid. To be fair, I wasn't forced into anything, but towards the end of HC Uldir and going into Mythic, out guild leader asked the melee DPS if anyone was willing to reroll to ranged. Since we had no Balance druid and because Frost DK is as fun at the moment as pulling your own teeth, I volunteered. It was ultimately my decision, but it got me thinking: are there too many melee DPS or it just looks like it based on our guild? Granted, there's 11 ranged DPS specs compared to 13 melee ones, and while the latter is more, it's not so big of a difference that it would warrant us having 70-30% melee to ranged ratio. I left in the middle of WoD ad ever since the start of BfA, I had this feeling that the melee market is over-flooded: even as I look at the group finder tool, most of the people look for ranged DPS if they specify their needs, which implies that getting a melee is not a problem.

So, how do you feel about this? Are there more melee? If so, why? Is it a design problem or melee are just more popular by nature?

It's not as simple as 13 vs 11. The problem is that of the 11 ranged specs, hunter, mage, and warlock comprise 8 of the 11 ranged specs. So that's 3 classes covering about 80% of the ranged specs. Then of the other specs Boomkin/Elemental both have competing melee specs in the same class so players may want to play that instead. However, if you want to play a monk, paladin, warrior, dk, or demon hunter and want to dps you have 1 option - melee.

[Ezyah]

What ? No would say Blizz. Wait for the next melee classes next xpac xD

[BrioWoW]

People don’t like being locked down so they choose melee more often. It’s not really something that’s going to change.

[Deleted]

A lot of the problem is the state of some of these ranged specs. Elemental shaman, balance Druid, shadow priest are specs that are consistently poor. I wouldn’t play these specs because based on their record they will be usually be the underperforming specs.

[Tekkommo]

Always too many, usually always like this.

I'm playing range dps for the first time, so now I get to complain about melee as well!

[Reachie10]

For me; I like to do other things then just DPS; as a warrior; I can DPS or Tank, there is really only a couple specs where it's DPS only for melee (rogue), but every other melee spec can be a different spec (tank or healer)

You only need 2 tanks for a raid, but many more DPS, so alot of people end up playing melee, so they can tank or heal outside of raids (For mythic +, dungeons, WQ's, PVP, ect)

Where with ranged, you have hunter, mage, warlock who only can DPS, so you are pretty much stuck to "only DPSing" - that's why I never really have mained a DPS only spec; i like to switch it up and tank or DPS at times.

[Groven4]

EDIT: Why is there no option for "not enough ranged" in your poll?

10---chars

[Xenodrake]

It's not as simple as 13 vs 11. The problem is that of the 11 ranged specs, hunter, mage, and warlock comprise 8 of the 11 ranged specs. So that's 3 classes covering about 80% of the ranged specs. Then of the other specs Boomkin/Elemental both have competing melee specs in the same class so players may want to play that instead. However, if you want to play a monk, paladin, warrior, dk, or demon hunter and want to dps you have 1 option - melee.

QQ no love for Shadowpriest... This unicorn is holding STRONG in raids..

[Xaviaton]

It's not as simple as 13 vs 11. The problem is that of the 11 ranged specs, hunter, mage, and warlock comprise 8 of the 11 ranged specs. So that's 3 classes covering about 80% of the ranged specs. Then of the other specs Boomkin/Elemental both have competing melee specs in the same class so players may want to play that instead. However, if you want to play a monk, paladin, warrior, dk, or demon hunter and want to dps you have 1 option - melee.

Beat me to it! Additionally the spread of heal/tank + DPS is weird. As you say, 73% of the ranged specs belong to classes that can only fulfill the DPS role as opposed to 23% of melee specs belonging to a class that can only fulfill the DPS role.

[bewbew]

We have a lack of Ranged DPS specs options in the game, and of ranged DPS players.

I'm unsure if one causes the other, but I'm 100% sure that more spec diversity for ranged, more gameplay diversity and a ranged hero class could help with that.

[schwank05]

I play Melee because I have shitty internet and PC so auto attack is my saving grace so I don't suck total balls, when my instant cast spells take .5 sec to cast and my casted spells have lag to them.

[Irian]

This is what happens when Blizzard designs ranged to be boring and nerfed to shit with underperforming numbers below even most of the lowest melee.

If you want to play and enjoy your melee again then have an issue with the way the game's being "balanced". Everyone's going to want to play melee because in a tier like Uldir they're objectively better because of all the forced movement mechanics combined with Blizzard's insistence that non-BM hunter ranged be turrets. This is going to get worse before it gets better unless they learn how to balance again, because it is absolutely not enjoyable playing a ranged in this tier.

[schwank05]

We have a lack of Ranged DPS specs options in the game, and of ranged DPS players.

I'm unsure if one causes the other, but I'm 100% sure that more spec diversity for ranged, more gameplay diversity and a ranged hero class could help with that.

I agree, there needs to be more ranged attackers that can move at will like Melee can, if that is a thing Id consider playing them. This is why I mained Resto Druid from BC-WOD

[Marrilaife]

Yes, the raid design is awful, especially bosses like fetid and mythrax actively punish you for bringing too many melee on mythic. It's been a problem for a long time, I saw the same issue in WOD / HFC where I had to reroll to hunter from tank because it's was just that much easier to get a raid spot as a range dps (range dps = read: hunter, warlock, mage, guilds usually don't want ele shamans and the rest of "hybrids" that often end up weak or only good for 1-2 fights).

Show me a kill of mythic fetid that doesn't have some combo of warlock + hunter + mage that adds up to 9-10 ranged total (with maybe 1 ranged of different class).

It's absolutely awful the game has more melee classes, and keeps adding them (dk, monk, dh, melee hunter), but doesn't make more room for melee while keeping designing melee unfriendly encounters.

And with the forced warrior / dh / monk buffs there's never a space for enhancement shaman or feral, and rarely is one for dk or ret. Dk mostly on bosses where you need grips, like Zul or Mythrax.

Same with mythic+, show me a top team that doesn't have at least 1 ranged (usually mage or warlock). And at higher keystones half the melee classes are never used. Only ones used frequently are rogue, dh, warrior, rarely windwalker monk. Rest bites the dust.

[ymn]

If you are taking into question high-end raiding, and only that - yes, we need more melees. BUT, it's not wise to have them because Uldir is very very melee unfriendly - it doesn't help that Mythrax and G'huun are the pinnacle of how bad it is for melee (we had a melee overstacked HC G'huun and it was living hell). Fetid is another encounter where you don't want melee.

There needs to be a fine line between too melee-friendly raids (Highmaul, BRF - which had Hunters and Mages on mechanics duties) and too melee-unfriendly.

Overall, the raid mechanics dictate what classes you want.

[ydraw]

There's been an overpopulation of Melee ever since DKs were introduced and Ret paladins got massive buffs in WOTLK. Previous to that, the only 2 melee DPS classes in the game were Rogue and Warrior.

Melee is preferred by players for a lot of reasons, I'll just list a few of the main ones:

1. Aesthetic. Melee actually get to swing their weapons and have animations for them. Casters mostly just wave their hands around in the air with their weapon not being used at all

2. Fast Paced. Melee have a lower GCD and all their abilities are instant. Being forced to move in the middle of a 2.5s cast is the most annoying thing in the game, and all ranged specs bar BM Hunter have to deal with it. BM Hunter is the only ranged spec that doesn't suffer from this, and therefore everyone who wants to play ranged but doesn't want to deal with cast times plays BM. Which is why BM has literally always been the most popular spec in the game (since TBC anyway).

3. Tank requirements. Dungeons are the most popular form of content in the game and require that 20% of players be tanks. Yet raids only require 10% of the players be tanks. All these players that tank in dungeons mostly DPS in raids, and only 1 of the 6 tanking specs has a ranged DPS option to choose from. This is a situation that could really use addressing. While it might not make sense for warriors to have a ranged DPS spec, it certainly could for Demon Hunters who don't even have a 3rd spec at this point. Same for DKs, one of their 2 dps specs could be ranged, they already have longer range than most melee classes.

[BrioWoW]

They really should just add a range spec to dh or change one of the dk specs to range.

[Morgaith]

Turnip/10 poll lmfao.

[turlockmike]

Melee mechanics are so much easier to deal with since you can cast while moving and barely losing any effectiveness. If you aren't perfect casting the right spell, moving the exact distance, timing your resources perfectly, etc, then you will be severely limited in dps. Ranged also have a ton of more responsibility when it comes to add control, soaking, spreading, etc.

When blizzard makes melee mechanics easier AND gives them higher dps, then people stop playing ranged.

[Tziva]

I'm part of the problem since I raid lead as melee, but we also have too many. Always too many. There are just too many melee specs in general, and a lot of them are high damage, popular, or novel classes that draw people in.

And, in general, Blizzard's encounter design has historically to be a lot more punishing to overstack melee. There aren't a lot of fights where you are discouraged from bringing a lot of ranged, and when a fight does want to make ranged have a disadvantage it usually is done by just making them do less DPS (my movement or whatever). In contrast, a fight that is punishing to melee usually does it in some way that involves mechanics being a lot harder and/or melee risking killing themselves. It's not really an equal balance of risks. There are exceptions of course, as well as situations where a particular melee might be good to bring, but just speaking in generalities.

We're just a heroic raid though so ultimately people get to play what they want to play and no one has to reroll ranged. But there are just definitely some encounters where having a a few less DPS or a few more ranged would have made things a lot easier.

Holy moly, you're right! How could I be so idiotic. Well, can't edit the poll now. I just hope people read the post before voting and they can figure out what I meant.

Fixed it for you.