Melee vs ranged dps

[Deleted]

Fury Warr here
Blizz have made some fights quite hard for us to do good overall dps in.Magmaw is an easy encounter which tends to both meele and ranged with the exception of the adds but they're no problem.Atramedes on the other hand is quite a ranged fight because after the 80 second down phase there is a 40 second up phase and all i have to use is Heroic Throw and then run away, While locks have dots,Spriests too,Hunters can still get a few shots off aswell. Not complaining just sayin'

Forgive me if I'm wrong here, but I was under the impression Atramedes was designed in such a way that even melee could still hit him during the airphase due to his enormous hit-box.

[Deleted]

you forgot one option: both

You can't answere both when your comparing 2 things to eachother like this >.>

[Jenerena]

I think certain encounters right now are making it that hard to even have a few melee in the group (or a couple in the case of 10 man) to actually defeat the encounter (without being overgeared). There is still work to be done on this disadvantage melee have on fights in comparison to casters.

[Styxz]

First off before I get flammed I have no cata raid exp yet ( cept one argoloth but he's lol)

While I can understand the plight of melee, I rly think this is becomming a "grass is greener" debate.

Yes melee have to do a lot of back and forth running, but what do you think the casters are doing for the seconds melee are running? Know what I mean?

On sort of a side note...I'm sure there will be tons of these threads all over the wow community over the next few weeks...especially since "paragon said it."

[taran111]

I can think of one fight that was easier for melee (havent started cata raiding yet) and that was Deathbringer Saurfang. Everything else? Its easier to have ranged.

Was about to say General Vezax but then i remembered that lame 1.5 second cast fire nova he did.

[twinkleblur]

honestly? the issue with melee taking more damage is because mechanics of old were that melee needed to move. back in wotlk you got used to sitting behind the boss and unloading everything. and no that you need to actually move to not die you cant do it.

[PBitt]

As a ranged, I would say overall it is indeed easier as ranged than melee in most cases. Its just a lot easier for ranged to be able to see everything that is going on, spread out, not have to move with the boss all the time, etc. I guess 'difficult' isn't exactly the word for it, its just more inconvience as a whole for melee....you might be responsible for interupting and stuff but at the same time ranged often have bitch jobs as well...killing stars on Algalon, kiting oozes on Rotface, etc....again, not necessarily 'hard' but you have to pay attention. Either way, IMO healing will always be the most difficult and most respectable (if you're good) role, closely followed by good tanks. As a pure dps I dont' really have all that much respect for the role unless you can actually do something other than good dps, which 97% of players can't do...that is interupt without failing all the damn time, managing aggro, switching to adds like you are often supposed to, etc, etc.

[Deleted]

Some bosses favour melee some favour range, most favour a mix.

Magmaw, melee are pretty much on the boss the whole team and rarely move.

Omnitron: Melee have to move less to dodge things but ranged can dps an add even it fixates them and still dps during magmatron fire blast etc.

Chimaeron: Melee literally spam the boss till it does, range spread out move in and out for feud. Yes melee have to move for feud but melee can keep full dps whilst moving which some people seem to forget.

Atramedes: Range can attack alot easier during air phase. Melee can keep full dps whilst moving to dodge discs and sonar breath.

Maloriak: Range gotta spread during blue vial for dps loss. Melee suffer frontal parrys during red phase.

I cba to list anymore but as you see both dps types have their advantages. Although Cho'gall and Ascendant Council. Ascendant council in particular is ridiculously range favoured and if you had the choice you may aswell bring 0 melee here.

[Bearshield]

Encounters that favor ranged are nothing new. Hell back in vanilla you could literally plant your heals and ranged in a corner somewhere and forget about them on several encounters while melee still had aoe dmg to worry about. The difference then was there was less emphasis on having a perfectly balanced group comp when we were doing 40 mans then there is now with 10/25 where every person counts. It would be nice to see an encounter or two that favors stacking melee (besides Saurfang, which still technically required some intelligent range for add control), or at least some that are balanced so that it doesnt matter which you bring as long as they have half a clue.

[Goochy]

My main is a hunter, and my alt is a rogue. After playing my hunter, then going over to the rogue on a raiding, I have 100% complete respect for all melee playing people. It is much harder to play as melee being all up in the Boss' grill and not having a full open screen to watch stuff. With that said, I salute you melee folk.

[Sunseeker]

Ranged. Less running, more time to do damage, health pools are about the same. Armor is much closer too.

That said, I find it boring. I think it's why so many ranged DPS players get so antsy sometimes. They're bored.

[Stealthbomb]

Been a rogue i feel melee is alot harder due to the amount of traveling we have to do. Feels weird that a speed enchant on boots is normally more dps than anything else. But like the other guy said, range is soo boring for me, just standing there doing a rotation and every so often moving 5yds left or right. Melee have alot more to worry about and this can also cause slip ups in rotation. Also some fights a rogue can be off the target so much that DP goes off which is a major dps loose tryingt o get it up again.

[Deleted]

Seeing as all the top raiding guils (no-one read Paragons post on the front page?) have actually had to drop melee for ALTS in many raid encouters, it is blatently easier and more favourable to play a range.

Thats all that needs to be said =P

[Mroz123]

I have feral cat as ofspec and it almost seems that I am the only one who don't take any dmg xD

[cFortyfive]

I have feral cat as ofspec and it almost seems that I am the only one who don't take any dmg xD

Ascendant Council may want to have a word with that. And it isn't even always about damage taken. It is more about not being able to deal damage in a lot of encounters. It's so much easier to bring just ranged to most encounters, I just don't feel I can pull my weight on heroic progress.

[Voij]

When comparing my Rogue and my Warlock, I can honestly say that I have a much harder time to dodge stuff on my Lock.
Truth be told, though, that that's mainly because I've used my Rogue as my raiding main for about 2 years straight, while my Lock has seen about 10 raids in total so far.

To be honest, melee have it harder atm. Not because of dps, though, which some apparently fail to see. Melee are in a bad position right now because of the return to old values.
Namely the fact that all shit hurts really hard now. Anybody remember the trash in front of Deathwisper and the knights in Naxxramas before Razuvious? Even in Wrath there were times when melee just got the shit cleaved out of them.
Now we have to face Bosses doing this shit to us. -.-

It's atm a chain heal situation, more or less. Tank takes lots of damage, is main target of CH. Melee also take quite a bit of damage, thus have to receive the jumps. Ranged usually don't take much damage, a Riptide every now and then is enough.

While this system can work, it's still highly unpleasant for melees. And that is where the problem lies right now. It even got bad enough for healers to hate being grouped with melee...
And, tbh, with the high manacost it's simply the best choice to take ranged just to make sure that your healers have enough mana to keep the tank up... which is really sad, imho.

PS: Forgot about having to fight while facing the boss. They did not take parry-haste out of the game, right? So yeah, sometimes the tank just takes more damage because your melee were stupid and actually tried to hurt the bad thing that's trying to nomnomnom your faces...

[Bakis]

Shifting from instance to instance, judging from ICC melee didnt have it hard at all..

Speaking generally, melee have it easier to keep their rotation up than casters but casters suffer less at excessive movement.
Melee taking more damage is not a meter of difficulty, fights are designed with that in mind as well as healers used to it.

For casters or melee I consider the specs that use a small rotation often with shit being autoapplied as nobrainers. Wrath: Combatrogue, Arcane Mage, various DK to some extent just to name some. Also stuff like which specs suffer the least of a certain attack not occouring at a given time.

[cFortyfive]

Shifting from instance to instance, judging from ICC melee didnt have it hard at all..

Speaking generally, melee have it easier to keep their rotation up than casters but casters suffer less at excessive movement.
Melee taking more damage is not a meter of difficulty, fights are designed with that in mind as well as healers used to it.

For casters or melee I consider the specs that use a small rotation often with shit being autoapplied as nobrainers. Wrath: Combatrogue, Arcane Mage, various DK to some extent just to name some. Also stuff like which specs suffer the least of a certain attack not occouring at a given time.

I'd really be interested to what extend the written is even slightly relevant to the discussion. icc is a long time away from being progress content. There is no spec at the moment that is exactly hard to play and who suffers most from movement kinda greatly depends where you have to move right ? ^

[Om1]

alot of you guys are talking about how melee have to move alot more and the ranged just get to stand way more still, and I agree it's true and it's how blizz have designed it.

but try looking at it another way; which of the two "take care of"/deal with the boss mechanics more? now I am not saying that the melee aren't, but for the most part this is a ranged job.

in my opinion there is absolutely nothing to whine about as it is currently, and at the end of the day it's not a melee VS ranged fight, it's a bossfight and if everyone does what thei're supposed to who gives a shit if eigther had to do more.

[Bakis]

I'd really be interested to what extend the written is even slightly relevant to the discussion. icc is a long time away from being progress content. There is no spec at the moment that is exactly hard to play and who suffers most from movement kinda greatly depends where you have to move right ? ^

Thought it was obvious comparing ICC to how melee unfriendly Cata is these first instances.
Your second opinion that some specs dont suffer more for not being able to do a certain attack I think is totally wrong. Its not only about the movment or how far its about when it comes, some can be planned for others not. I dont think for example warriors suffers even 10% as much as a feral or afflictionlock would do.
Having a bunch of attacks off GCD or autospreading diseases make some things alot easier to optain almost optimal rotation than one might first think.

Ontop of this some fights require alot of movement for adds, often thats no problem for melee cos usually ranged are put to handle those to all or a larger extent. I noticed someones post on the first page where he exaggerate on most of the examples he bring up. Especially like his Sind explantion totally ignoring that depending on setting a caster can be unable to cast any spell at all.

Anyway, Cata raids are pure bullcrap atm, melee suffer like hell and its sad that people, we did this as well, swap out a melee simply cos healer mana or enrage timer put extra preassure to finish the fight within a set timelimit.