"Melee friendly encounters..."

[Aboubacar]

All combo point guys face a pretty harsh swap penalty, but it's certainly not ludicrously high. Many of the really punishing rogue mechanics were fixed (bandit's guile being the big one) or addressed (a 10 second redirect minimizes but certainly doesn't eliminate CP destruction).

As for hunters, I don't count them. Blizzard has given them BOTH the advantages of melee and ranged, BUT they have also reduced their patchwerk damage. Hunters have a niche, and a quick glance at WoL for Thok shows this clearly. You may not LIKE that niche, but it's clear that they are a third thing- weapon class but lower damage than melee weapons.

No, hunters have both benefits of ranged and melee with none of the downsides. Their mobility is out of control. The only thing they don't offer is a raid CD in terms of healing or damage reduction. They also bring double immunity and unique buffs like AOE sunder. They are gods on a completely different level. Single target and aoe is competitive...

[Rivin]

So much wrong with this. Over the past tiers I can name so many bosses where melee can simply IGNORE essential boss mechanics because they are in melee.

Ranged have mechanics; melee have mechanics. You mention things like Thunderstruck while ignoring Thunder Crash, for example, or that being able to "sit in the pool all day" requires that Jin'rohk is actually next to the pool. Ranged are much less dependent on tank positioning to be able to avoid mechanics effectively--but perhaps my view on that is skewed by running LFR too often.

For what it's worth, I thought Throne of Thunder was, other than a couple of bosses, very melee-friendly. And also very ranged-friendly. And that's a good thing. They both need mechanics to deal with and neither should be majorly punished for those mechanics existing.

[Espe]

Starting in Cata, Blizz began removing the movement penalty for Ranged, without any similar penalty removed from melee. The result? Ranged became unstoppable DPS machines, while Melee continued to be at the same state they were in the days of Vanilla.

This right here.

So many delusional players in here trying to spin it like ranged doesn't have an advantage on nearly every fight. "Melee friendly" (LOL) does not mean "melee preferred" or even "melee wanted" apparently.

Ranged today lose 0 dps when moving, plus they get to stay at range away from most boss abilities or at a place they can safely and easily move from them.

[Aboubacar]

Ranged have mechanics; melee have mechanics. You mention things like Thunderstruck while ignoring Thunder Crash, for example, or that being able to "sit in the pool all day" requires that Jin'rohk is actually next to the pool. Ranged are much less dependent on tank positioning to be able to avoid mechanics effectively--but perhaps my view on that is skewed by running LFR too often.

For what it's worth, I thought Throne of Thunder was, other than a couple of bosses, very melee-friendly. And also very ranged-friendly. And that's a good thing. They both need mechanics to deal with and neither should be majorly punished for those mechanics existing.

Melee don't lose damage by moving out of thunder crash, while ranged stop casting for several seconds to dodge thunderstruck. Ignoring mechanics he means things like Iron Qon where so many abilities don't even target the melee to the point where they just tunnel the boss for the entire fight.

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This right here.

So many delusional players in here trying to spin it like ranged doesn't have an advantage on nearly every fight. "Melee friendly" (LOL) does not mean "melee preferred" or even "melee wanted" apparently.

Ranged today lose 0 dps when moving, plus they get to stay at range away from most boss abilities or at a place they can safely and easily move from them.

Sorry that's just delusional, as I've stated before hunters are the only ranged on that sort of playing field that you are talking about. Possibly ele as well. Every other ranged loses a ton of dps by moving at all.

You need to stop confusing class imbalance/perks with role differences. Just because 2 ranged specs don't lose any dps from movement doesn't mean they are all that way. Have a go on a shadow priest or arcane mage sometime and get back to me.

Also inb4 movement fillers lol. Instants like SWP and moonfire do very minimal damage, whereas melee use all their main attacks while moving and can close spaces of 50 yards in seconds.

[Azrile]

Melee won't consider a fight melee friendly or be happy until they can tunnel the boss the entire encounter and every mechanic ignores them... The problem is that the majority of melee don't play a ranged alt at the same level or understand that every time ranged has to move they lose damage and more boss mechanics target ranged than melee in general.

Every time I hear a fight isn't melee friendly there's some sort of void zone to dodge in melee range of the boss that braindead melee are dying to and exclaim "ranged have it so much easier".

With the exclusion of hunters, ranged have just as much if not more mechanics to deal with that cause boss downtime and damage loss. SoO is one of the most melee friendly instances and bad melee are still complaining that bosses aren't "melee friendly". Basically, you need to get better. It's another learn to play issue...

It's actually ridiculous how enormous boss hit boxes have become to please the bad melee players. When you can melee a boss from halfway across the room while ranged have to cancel casts to dodge mechanics a boss isn't favoring ranged...

Agree with this completely. Not enough players are invested enough in an alt to realize that things are not perfect boss-to-boss.. but over a tier, it really isn´t that bad.

A lot of the problem also comes down to really stupid raid leaders who try to dictate stupid comps based on anecdotal things they read somewhere. the type of person who looks at a world first kill and thinks they need to mimic that comp exactly. ´omg, paragon used a holy priest, sorry , you are going to need to respec´.

I see stuff like that all the time and it is just from simple-minded people.. and it gets repeated and repeated ad nasaum for an entire tier based on what a handfull of guilds did the first week.

[Xucuroz]

I think the quote is fine. SoO is fairly melee friendly. At least as long as you don't bring too many melee. Everything is still seemingly better with ranged though. Thok you could just have more hunters on i'm sure.

That said lets not kid ourselfs. Theres a noticable gap between melee and range in raids. I suspect you'd see even less melee, if rogues, warriors didn't bring stuff like smokebombs, banners ect.

Also when people complain about fights not being melee friendly, i don't think its always to do with mechanics that overly punish melee like flames on ground or such. But that a lot of boss mechanics are just easier to do as ranged, like switching as one example.

[Verain]

No, hunters have both benefits of ranged and melee with none of the downsides. Their mobility is out of control. The only thing they don't offer is a raid CD in terms of healing or damage reduction. They also bring double immunity and unique buffs like AOE sunder. They are gods on a completely different level. Single target and aoe is competitive...

I really don't agree with you. What fights have hunters topped this whole expac? Thok, which plays to their explicitly designed strengths and...

Maybe some fight that works with their semi-bullshit aoe method? I'm not sure. Certainly, hunters are not top single target patch. I agree that the class as a whole is competitive and good, but I disagree that Blizzard overshot. Maybe this tier will prove me wrong, but so far hunter raid dps has had issues all expac, issues mostly justified by their ability to execute under any circumstance.

So many delusional players in here trying to spin it like ranged doesn't have an advantage on nearly every fight.

I... sort of agree. In the current model, I try to recruit ranged. I never want more than two melee, and ideally I would be the only one. Given that fights range from two to seven dps, it seems odd that I would have this strong preference, yet it remains the case. There's not a lot of fights that make me WISH I could stack all melee. And their should be, if they will continue making fights where I'm happy to stack all ranged, or damned near.

Ranged today lose 0 dps when moving

And here you lose me. Ranged visibly lose dps on movement fights. Their cycles become odd. Their buff management gets mangled a bit, and they become less powerful and do less damage. They become more dependent on their burst and less on their sustained. Ranged lose damage when moving for sure. They could be made to lose more, or they could force them to move more often, or they could tune melee higher like in DS, or they could go a different route and give melee another thing. They've talked about this publicly- it's not like the devs don't address it.

Just because 2 ranged specs don't lose any dps from movement doesn't mean they are all that way.

This is almost right. I can think of three ranged specs who have no restrictions (marks/BM/surv), and ele doesn't care too much either. However, all four of these guys don't normally get the same benefit when they DO get to hold still. It seems like if you get both ranged and movement, they tune you lower, which is totally reasonable given their current model.

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I think the quote is fine. SoO is fairly melee friendly. At least as long as you don't bring too many melee. Everything is still seemingly better with ranged though. Thok you could just have more hunters on i'm sure.

Thok is interesting because you control transitions. If you have a melee heavy comp, you try to hold P1 really long. In our guild (no hunter, mostly ranged) we try to hold P2 really long. A hunter dominates here because both phases are very similar to him. Meanwhile, I throw shurikens, which are braggable.

[Maelstrom51]

Oh no, an encounter isn't easy for bad players who cant dodge bad stuff.

Praytell, how does swapping in an unaware ranged help on Dark Shamans? Is it somewhat easier for good ranged than good melee? Yes. An encounter that is hard for bad players isnt a problem. The problem is that your melee is bad at being melee.

Dodging bad stuff isn't difficult on any fight, really. The reason fights are "melee unfriendly" this tier is adds spawning across the room that have to die ASAP, being forced out of melee range for extended periods of time to not get hit by certain mechanics, etc. These things affect melee MUCH more than ranged, as a significant chunk (as in, the majority) of melee's damage can only be done in melee range, while ranged is able to mostly sidestep and cast an instant spell for a very, very minor dps loss, and can switch targets immediately for what is usually a dps INCREASE thanks to the prevalence of powerful DoTs.

I wouldnt say Blizzard didnt add a bit more ranged usage to melee. Rogues can spam shuriken if they really want to/need to. Deathknight ranged isnt bad at all. Warriors are even more capable of moving quickly. Paladins are...paladins. But hey they can still do some ranged dps.

Please get some knowledge of these classes before talking.

Speccing Shuriken Toss is a large dps loss in itself, and while at range, you still lose most of your damage, since you don't have access to your finishing moves.

Death Knights have the best ranged ability of melee classes, but still lose the majority of their damage while not in melee. Melee attacks, Frost Strikes, Scourge Strikes, Obliterates, etc., are all huge pieces of their damage kit.

Warriors do have great mobility, but also have the worst ranged damage as melee. They are great at switching to adds, but mechanics that force them out of melee range hurt them the most. They cannot generate resources and have almost zero damage while not in melee.

Paladins have hammer and judgement at range, and don't have very good mobility. Enough said.


Currently, ranged is able to do everything melee can do, but better. The only reason melee is taken is due to high damage if they're allowed to tunnel the boss (rogues, warriors), ridiculous utility (warriors), OP durability (rogues, death knights), or insane, free passive cleave (death knights).
If you look up top guilds, you will notice that 95% of the melee are of these three classes, and its with good reason.
Other melee are generally not worth the spot over a ranged, since they can do everything better. For a melee to be to be taken, they have to have one or more aspect of them that is completely broken compared to other classes.

[xixixviixiiii]

This conversation is so dumb. What happens to your raid if you ONLY stack ranged? Now what happens if your raid ONLY stacks melee? Yeah, that's what I thought.

SoO has a handful of bosses that are melee friendly but it largely prefers ranged. Honestly, I didn't find ToT that bad as melee and I find SoO worse (especially the trash). So, yeah... My personal experience in SoO lends me to believe Blizzard doesn't know WTF it's talking about. No idea what the melee "perks" are supposed to be? The ability to disarm a boss?

[Rivin]

Melee don't lose damage by moving out of thunder crash, while ranged stop casting for several seconds to dodge thunderstruck. Ignoring mechanics he means things like Iron Qon where so many abilities don't even target the melee to the point where they just tunnel the boss for the entire fight.

Crashing Thunder depends on your location and where they get placed. I've had plenty of times where his entire backside would be blocked off by Crashing Thunder and I had to circle around them to get back into melee range without running through them. (And, of course, if the tank isn't paying attention, that might require having to stand in front of him, losing DPS from parries.)

As far as Iron Qon goes... Both melee and ranged have to dodge lines and circle around to avoid shielded zones. Melee cannot attack (aside from low-DPS ranged attacks, if possible) during the storm phase while ranged can. It's not what I'd consider a melee-unfriendly fight (unless the tank thinks it's fun to move through as many lines as possible), but it's definitely not "tunnel the boss for the entire fight" for either melee or ranged.

[Maelstrom51]

This conversation is so dumb. What happens to your raid if you ONLY stack ranged? Now what happens if your raid ONLY stacks melee? Yeah, that's what I thought.

The funny part about this statement is that as you stack ranged, mechanics get even easier for them, since each person is less likely to be targeted by an ability.

[Manthis]

SoO is very melee-friendly in my opinion. I mean I'm a backup for a guild incase someone of their roster is unable to attend and they've cleared normal mode a week or two ago. And they have 3 (!) melees in their group (not sure if they've started heroics yet or of they're farming normals a bit for upgrades.)

Point is, if your raiders are competent, group comp doesn't matter that much.

[Giscoicus]

This conversation is so dumb. What happens to your raid if you ONLY stack ranged? Now what happens if your raid ONLY stacks melee? Yeah, that's what I thought.

SoO has a handful of bosses that are melee friendly but it largely prefers ranged. Honestly, I didn't find ToT that bad as melee and I find SoO worse (especially the trash). So, yeah... My personal experience in SoO lends me to believe Blizzard doesn't know WTF it's talking about. No idea what the melee "perks" are supposed to be? The ability to disarm a boss?

The ability to move and not stop dps? The ability to not worry about being interrupt while casting by movement or an interrupt? Ranged are limited by casting, being silenced, interrupted or moved at any time. Aside from very few spells, ranged cannot move one bit while attacking (hunters are in their own class).

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The funny part about this statement is that as you stack ranged, mechanics get even easier for them, since each person is less likely to be targeted by an ability.

There is a bigger clusterf*** going on with the ranged. Only ranged on Lei Shen? controlling chain lightning is harder.

[Verain]

Dodging bad stuff isn't difficult on any fight, really. The reason fights are "melee unfriendly" this tier is adds spawning across the room that have to die ASAP, being forced out of melee range for extended periods of time to not get hit by certain mechanics, etc. These things affect melee MUCH more than ranged, as a significant chunk (as in, the majority) of melee's damage can only be done in melee range, while ranged is able to mostly sidestep and cast an instant spell for a very, very minor dps loss, and can switch targets immediately for what is usually a dps INCREASE thanks to the prevalence of powerful DoTs.

This is mostly correct, and it is why I heavily prefer ranged. Going to 10s really made this difference stark.

Speccing Shuriken Toss is a large dps loss in itself, and while at range, you still lose most of your damage, since you don't have access to your finishing moves.

Death Knights have the best ranged ability of melee classes, but still lose the majority of their damage while not in melee. Melee attacks, Frost Strikes, Scourge Strikes, Obliterates, etc., are all huge pieces of their damage kit.

It is interesting that the only fight in awhile to really say "hell no" to melee also has a "hell no" to non-hunter ranged. Thok is the first fight I've seen a decent number of rogues go shuriken on. If it weren't for the interrupting shriek in P1, however, melee would be a "do not bring" with a giant red X.

I dispute your statement about DKs and rogues though, to a degree. While ST is a damage loss to even spec, if a fight has enough uptime to warrant it it will increase damage. If the whole fight were somehow just shurikens, rogues would be an awful choice indeed- but in practice, the shurikens come out on Thok as he runs around the room, and you can often hop on by to refresh rupture on throw an envenom as he waddles by you to the next victim. This is far superior to the case where you don't have shurikens and only get those few globals, but I don't normally find myself unable to rotate at all- I'm still TRYING to be in melee with him, remember, and the shurikens supplement.

Rogues do so much autoattack damage that I really think that they are going to be ahead of DKs here. DKs certainly have more powerful ranged burst, but rogues can really autoattack from ranged, with some restrictions- that will top the DK tricks.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

There was a mistake that was made with warlocks and imo ele shamans. That has been nearly removed for warlocks.
Hunters are the only outliers. Ranged dps that do 100% damage on the move w/ 0 penalty or thoughts given to positioning.

You actually have it a bit backwards in a sense. They moved up warlock mobility and casting(now gone), but at the same time increased all melee mobility w/ double charge, burst of speed, short shadow step cd etc. and now melee are unpeelable by most classes in pvp and can leap across 100 yard boss room in 2 seconds...

What melee have trouble target swapping? ferals? that's about it. All melee have great clump aoe. The only thing they don't have that some ranged have is multidot spread cleave.

Does charge still have the "unusable in combat" tag? Because if it doesn't, that was a MoP change for sure.

Target swapping is fine, I should have specified add grabbing. Any time you have to cross a whole room to continue doing what you were doing, there's going to be a DPS loss for melee and not for ranged.



These days it's AoEs that are having the greater impact on melee, and it's an unavoidable situation.

[Wow]

It's difficult to make a fight that is specifically melee friendly (i.e. that is not equally friendly towards all of the damage dealers).

One mechanic that made certain fights more friendly to melee than casters was pushback. Given that melee weren't disadvantaged for other reasons, which is common to happen. Teron Gorefiend comes to mind.

They did it all the time in wrath, The problem is its to hard to do that now that range's weakness have near been fully removed for raiding.

Its fine for everyone do have to do with everything as long as everyone loses the sameish amount of dmg for doing them.

[cFortyfive]

as I've stated before hunters are the only ranged on that sort of playing field that you are talking about. Possibly ele as well. Every other ranged loses a ton of dps by moving at all.
Also inb4 movement fillers lol. Instants like SWP and moonfire do very minimal damage, whereas melee use all their main attacks while moving and can close spaces of 50 yards in seconds.

Warlocks. Also most ranged dps nowadays have at the very least movementspeed increases and a lot even additional gap closers. I don't see how the argument gets better by naming the three least mobile specs.
Anyways a good melee encounter given the class capabilities at that time was to me ragnaros hc. It didn't let melees blatantly ignore half the mechanics of the encounter but most abilities allowed you to still stay in melee range. Ranged dps classes still had some advantages but I felt it was kinda well done.

[Futhark]

On another note, which ranged can't move and dps at this point? Icy floes for every mage, KJC for everylock, Hunters, yeah, Ele Shamans, yeah, SPriests, yeah.

I think Ghostcrawler has said a couple times that this has gotten out of hand. I personally believe this is the major cause of melee frustration, because the way to design a melee favored fight is heavy movement. Take movement out as a factor when casting, and ranged has no disadvantages. And I say this as an Elemental Shaman that LOVES the fact I can cast almost everything on the move.

[Dasani]

My team has no melee on it. we've cleared siege already and no regrets. Melee just aren't as good as ranged, too many disadvantages.

[Eranthe]

i think siege only seems melee friendly in comparison to most raids in recent memory which have been particularly unfriendly.

a better way to put it is: siege of orgrimmar isn't nearly as annoying for melee as most of our other raids have been, but there's still no inherent advantage to bringing more melee in the way that there is an inherent advantage in bringing more ranged.