RDPS > Melee

[killars]

Not necessarily. Assassination rogues can ignore expertise.

Same with Feral Druids and DKs.

[OrcsRLame]

Exactly. My warrior's group has 0 melee. We kill things much more easily now than when we had even one melee.

There is one exception. Plate dps is by far the best method of handling the adds in Nefarian.

Really? In my 10 man I just planned on speccing frost (mage) for Nef adds. Seems pretty simple. Between frost nova, pet nova, ring of frost, cone of cold, cold snap, more frost nova, more ring of frost, if I get hit I fail.

Oh, and blink sprint, I love me some blink sprint.

[dawawe]

Not necessarily. Assassination rogues can ignore expertise.

yes but your encouraged to get spell hit cap for you poisons which is the same amount of rating difference if u did 8% hit 6% exp

[Deleted]

What people also don't seem to realize with the interrupt-niche is that come 4.1, you don't need a melee DPS or even a shammy to interrupt. With interrupts not missing anymore, each raidgroup now has 1-3 players who spend the entire fight on the boss, woh can use their 10sec CD Interrupts without fear of failing.

The tanks.

[SilkforCalde]

Really? In my 10 man I just planned on speccing frost (mage) for Nef adds. Seems pretty simple. Between frost nova, pet nova, ring of frost, cone of cold, cold snap, more frost nova, more ring of frost, if I get hit I fail.

Oh, and blink sprint, I love me some blink sprint.

Plate can just pop a sword and board + def stance / RF macro or in the case of a DK just go in blood presence and easily tank the adds. This means you don't have to have a dpser take a suboptimal spec. I've done it before on my warrior, it's very easy and I don't take that much damage. And you don't have to wear any special tank gear other than weapons which can easily be swapped in combat.

A frost mage won't do as much damage as a fire mage, for the most part. A fury warrior won't be doing damage to the boss while tanking the adds but neither would the mage. The fury warrior will not have to alter their spec or gear. It's a very elegant solution. DK is probably the best, however, due to better self healing.

The most difficult part of dealing with the adds as a frost mage, btw, is not avoiding their hits. It's picking up the adds in the first place. Plate dps doesn't have this issue with taunts.

I forgot to mention feral druids btw. They can also deal with the adds easily by shifting into bear form.

[Deleted]

Plate can just pop a sword and board + def stance / RF macro or in the case of a DK just go in blood presence and easily tank the adds. This means you don't have to have a dpser take a suboptimal spec. I've done it before on my warrior, it's very easy and I don't take that much damage. And you don't have to wear any special tank gear other than weapons which can easily be swapped in combat.

A frost mage won't do as much damage as a fire mage, for the most part. A fury warrior won't be doing damage to the boss while tanking the adds but neither would the mage. The fury warrior will not have to alter their spec or gear. It's a very elegant solution. DK is probably the best, however, due to better self healing.

The most difficult part of dealing with the adds as a frost mage, btw, is not avoiding their hits. It's picking up the adds in the first place. Plate dps doesn't have this issue with taunts.

I forgot to mention feral druids btw. They can also deal with the adds easily by shifting into bear form.

We actually found our Feral Tank equipping her Kittycat Gear to tank the adds while I went Prot OS to tank Neffy to work better than me with a Righteous Fury on. It bugs me that RF is the only one out of all the tankmodifiers than only increases threat, without affecting damagetaken/hitpoints/armor/whatnot

[beingmused]

Okay there's a lot of foolishness going on in this thread.

I have seen two main arguements for melee being useful in this raid tier and both are very wrong. One is interrupts. In all cases of interrupts, just replace the word "melee" with "elemental shaman" they are ranged, and have a 6 second CD interrupt. There ya go, melee are out of a job there.

Replacing all melee with elemental shamans would be a lot more foolish than anything said in this thread. For starters, that is a terrible comp for buffs and loot distribution. Secondly - shaman interrupts may be ranged, but they also have the shortest lockout of any interrupt, and Rets and Rogues have an easier time constantly interrupting without it screwing up their resources for DPS. But more importantly, in heroic raiding MOST of the fights have special roles that only melee can do, or do well.

V+T has the shadow realm adds, and 2 of the 3 classes best equipped to deal with those are rogues and Rets. A subtlety rogue can solo the adds in 10man.
Elemental Council - This is one of the few fights where being melee heavy is a detriment, due to the way phase2 works. But you still need melee for blowing the fire shield, melee are capable of burst DPS far above any ranged, particularly Fury and Ret.
Omnitron - You have to move on this fight so much, ranged just can't keep up. Spell stealing arcanatron's buff masks the fact that fundamentally melee are able to keep damage up while being on the move.
Magmaw - Burst on the exposed head, and constructs. Another fight where combat rogues win the meters. Need a frost DK if you want to kite the parasites and eliminate that part of the fight.
Chimaeron - DPS tanking, of course.
Atramedes - Heroic mode requires near constant movement. Again, how else do you think I do the most damage of anyone in my guild on this fight despite the fact that I can only cast Judgment and Exorcism during air phase? Also you need rogues to hit air phase gongs and kite the resulting breath.
Conclave - You really need melee to deal with Rohash, both because of the shield that has to be burst down (ranged can't do enough damage quickly enough, usually), and because you have to be moving nonstop. Need a Frost DK for kiting Anshal adds.

It isn't a simple "melee bad, ranged good" answer. In heroic modes you need specific classes for specific fights, and many of those roles fall to melee. Very few of the fights have mechanics that make being melee difficult. 4.2 will probably work to make it so that there are more fights that give special roles to melee, but you can't do very well even this tier if you don't have any.

[SilkforCalde]

Why are people talking about school lockouts when we are talking about interrupt? You can't silence bosses. Talking about lockout is meaningless.

[cFortyfive]

The only boss I believe the lockout time is significant is arcanotron. And I don't really believe that melees are underperforming atm. I just think that owls for instance are ridiculously op at a level that has never been seen before.

[Deleted]

It isn't a simple "melee bad, ranged good" answer. In heroic modes you need specific classes for specific fights, and many of those roles fall to melee. Very few of the fights have mechanics that make being melee difficult. 4.2 will probably work to make it so that there are more fights that give special roles to melee, but you can't do very well even this tier if you don't have any.

Many of the roles fall to A FEW melee. Once you have those 3-4 people the rest bring nothing that a ranged doesn't, while still crowding up the area beside the boss.

Nobody's trying to argue that 100% ranged fights are optimal, just that the optimal setup for fights tends to be between 50 and 75% ranged, whereas there is never a fight where >50% melee is *optimal*. Doable yes, not a big deal maybe, but not optimal. Mayybe Atramedes I guess, but that's the only one I can see.

[beingmused]

Many of the roles fall to A FEW melee. Once you have those 3-4 people the rest bring nothing that a ranged doesn't, while still crowding up the area beside the boss.

Nobody's trying to argue that 100% ranged fights are optimal, just that the optimal setup for fights tends to be between 50 and 75% ranged, whereas there is never a fight where >50% melee is *optimal*. Doable yes, not a big deal maybe, but not optimal. Mayybe Atramedes I guess, but that's the only one I can see.

Sure, but the number of fights where "crowding the boss area" is a bad thing is relatively few. If you had to pick 25 specs and then never change them then you'd have more ranged than melee, but being melee heavy isn't a problem on most fights.