I'm a leader of casual 2 day raiding guild. That doesn't mean we do not approach raiding seriously - on the contrary, it means our raiding time is very precious.

To get the best chance on majority of bosses I will always pick ranged over melee. Playing melee in this game is so punishing. There isn't a SINGLE fight where melee have any advantage over ranged.

That needs to be addressed as one of the absolute top priorities in my opinion as it affects all melee raiders.

Here's a summary of my observations on how melees are screwed on almost every boss:

ETERNITY VAULT

Annihilation Droid XRR-3: Stomp causes damage, pushback causes lost DPS time, longer distance to hide behind the pillar. Ranged don't get affected by either of those mechanisms.

Gharj: Stomp causes damage and lost DPS time, ranged not affected.

Pylon: lets say it's OK (apart of again more dps time lost when part of panel pressing rotation)

Infernal Council: this boss is a joke anyway

Soa: a LOT of dps time lost when switching to mind traps

KARAGGA'S PALACE

Bonetrasher: ranged give you more options with placement, melee need to be near the boss and get hit by swipe much more often, they make almost constant DPS on the other hand which is a bit compensative but still ranged can be placed anywhere.

Jarg and Sorno: not that bad, can split the raid. still easier with all ranged.

Foreman Crusher: stomp

G4-B3 Heavy Fabricator: very melee unfriendly - can't place them on puzzle, they can't dps from upper platform, they often get hit by missles.

Karagga: nightmare for melee because of the oil patches being placed near the boss only. higher chance to be hit by odd mouse droid, if the get pulled to the person affected by the "white beam" they lose dps.

So 10 out of 10 bosses are easier with ranged DPS used, some to a greater degree than others. There is absolutely no reason to take melee to most fights and it must be changed as I want every single of my guild members to be able to enjoy the content and not tell them that because of our progression goals its better they sit the fight.

My suggestions: introduce punishing mechanisms affecting ranged only to the EVEN degree, re-think interrupt importance and giving interrupts to ranged, give melee more significant boss debuffs (to the point they will be required to beat the content).

I agree that it needs to be addressed. I am a Level 50 Marauder if I try looking for a group for Ops or Flashpoints, I get ignored sometimes because the ranged healers want LESS people to heal. I usually have to start my own group and just convince people it can be done.

Maybe design a buff where a melee's attack range can be increased or something, I don't know.

I've noticed this since day one though, people don't want melee's as DPS. It sucks and it's a shame because I enjoy playing my class.

ETERNITY VAULT

Annihilation Droid XRR-3: Not true, wrong melee position. Advantage on storm protocol as a melee since you don't need to interrupt your cast to move!

Gharj: Stomp causes damage yes, but no loss of dps. Healers can cover this easily. Maybe an advantage for ranged but no dps loss!

Pylon: /

Infernal Council: this boss is a joke anyway (free loot boss agree)

Soa: Yes and no. Most melee classes have other advantages on that fight. Shadows/*** can use force speed and resilience on lightning balls so they take NO dmg at all. Warrior/knights can't use their leap ability on boss that's stupid. Anyway doing this event is easy if it doesn't bug!

KARAGGA'S PALACE

Bonetrasher: ranged give you more options with placement, melee need to be near the boss and get hit by swipe much more often, they make almost constant DPS on the other hand which is a bit compensative but still ranged can be placed anywhere.

(Agree on that, but smart melee position far enough from the boss and don't take the swipe behind him.)

Jarg and Sorno: Indeed easier.

Foreman Crusher: This boss is a joke! And marauders/sentinel can give the speed buff so frenzy is a joke

G4-B3 Heavy Fabricator: this fight is indeed impossible with a melee heavy group

Karagga: This fight is easier for melee.. On the side of the boss they get hit by nothing! It's the tank that is spreading the pools around the room. If melee can't reach the boss. Tank is failing. Ranged get's alot of interrupt from spikes. Where melee just takes the dmg.

I agree, my main is level 50 sentinal and im now having to level a commando due to this bias towards ranged. Unfortunatly it means to be competitive when it comes to picking an ops team even in my own guild i will get bumped for a ranged DPS as theres no attacks which punish ranged but theres big penaltys for melee.

I dont know what else to say i cant use my sentinal in PVP as it is a slaughter agasint lightning, and i get penailtys agasint me verses boss in PVE. It sucks.

I love melee and light sabers but im going to have to just keep leveling this alt and will simply deafult to it until melee gets adressed.

You may have a point - just wanted to throw a few tips out there for you on these two points you made. This has helped my guild a lot.

Annihilation Droid XRR-3: Stomp causes damage, pushback causes lost DPS time, longer distance to hide behind the pillar. Ranged don't get affected by either of those mechanisms.

Our guild doesn't run behind pillars for this fight; we stack up on the melee and AoE heal during the missle barrage. This actually increases the raid's DPS and helps us beat enrage timer on nightmare/hard modes. Given this strategy, it's actually advantageous to have a good amount of melee as they get to keep dpsing and don't have to spend time running in.

Also, if DPS are on the side of the boss and tanks are in front of him and on his opposite side where melee are, melee won't get affected by knockback.

Gharj: Stomp causes damage and lost DPS time, ranged not affected.

We do similar strategy for this as the annihilator; for the stomps we allow the melee to stay in and have our healers toss aoe heals mostly on melee (occasionally aoe heal goes out to ranged). Again, this helps us beat the enrage timers.

Granted, in this scenario, having melee isn't any "better" than ranged, but I don't find that melee for us are punished - we just heal through it and the dps are disadvantaged then.

Again, I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just tossing out that maybe your guild can consider a bit different strategizing to allow people to play the classes/roles they want. We had a lot of melee dps in our guild when we started SWTOR and rather than making people reroll classes/specs they didn't want, we just accomodated our strategies to match our roster.

ETERNITY VAULT

 

Annihilation Droid XRR-3: Not true, wrong melee position. Advantage on storm protocol as a melee since you don't need to interrupt your cast to move!

 

Gharj: Stomp causes damage yes, but no loss of dps. Healers can cover this easily. Maybe an advantage for ranged but no dps loss!

 

Pylon: /

 

Infernal Council: this boss is a joke anyway (free loot boss agree)

 

Soa: Yes and no. Most melee classes have other advantages on that fight. Shadows/*** can use force speed and resilience on lightning balls so they take NO dmg at all. Warrior/knights can't use their leap ability on boss that's stupid. Anyway doing this event is easy if it doesn't bug!

 

KARAGGA'S PALACE

 

Bonetrasher: ranged give you more options with placement, melee need to be near the boss and get hit by swipe much more often, they make almost constant DPS on the other hand which is a bit compensative but still ranged can be placed anywhere.

(Agree on that, but smart melee position far enough from the boss and don't take the swipe behind him.)

 

Jarg and Sorno: Indeed easier.

 

Foreman Crusher: This boss is a joke! And marauders/sentinel can give the speed buff so frenzy is a joke

 

G4-B3 Heavy Fabricator: this fight is indeed impossible with a melee heavy group

 

Karagga: This fight is easier for melee.. On the side of the boss they get hit by nothing! It's the tank that is spreading the pools around the room. If melee can't reach the boss. Tank is failing. Ranged get's alot of interrupt from spikes. Where melee just takes the dmg.

You are not seeing the real problem here. I can ease my statement and agree that on (rare) occasions melee can have their advantages and with cautious play you can beat the bosses with them in the group. But if you have all-ranged group you can ignore many mechanisms of the fights or very simply avoid them with spreading and they are plain easier.

Some replies to this thread already show you that finding a group for eg. marauder can be hard because why not take a ranged and don't care about them failing on mechanisms not affecting ranged at all.

It is rather amusing to see most of the replies amount to people agreeing with the OP even though, in their post, they disagree.

"Hey, you're wrong, and here's why." Except what they're saying really just says melee has to try harder than ranged to win in almost all of the boss fights.

You are not seeing the real problem here. I can ease my statement and agree that on (rare) occasions melee can have their advantages and with cautious play you can beat the bosses with them in the group. But if you have all-ranged group you can ignore many mechanisms of the fights or very simply avoid them with spreading and they are plain easier.

 

Some replies to this thread already show you that finding a group for eg. marauder can be hard because why not take a ranged and don't care about them failing on mechanisms not affecting ranged at all.

I really don`t see the problem tbh. Other than the Gharj jump, and (!)perhaps(!) the the Fabricator there isn`t any mechanic you could ignore.

Lets see:

EV:

Anni Droid: KB can easily be avoided by meelees if positioned right. Stun stuns everyone (could be wrong about that). Meelee don`t have to run to the boss at barrage phases and don`t have dps loss at storm protocol. That boss is pretty even imo.

Gharj: No doubt the melee unfrendliest boss right now. Still if your healers are at least average you have no problems having 3-4 melees in this fight.

Puzzle: -_- yeah right... That isn`t a boss

Council: -_- see above

Soa: No mechanic a range can ignore here. In reality melees can neglect more dmg than range can in this encounter (half of the fall dmg for JK/SW, lighning balls for Shadow/assa). "DPS loss on target switching" doesn`t count as there is no enrage timer and thus no dps race at phase 1 and 2, and on phase 3 you can`t dmg the boss anyway other than in the dmg phases...

KP:

Bonethrasher: This is a movement boss. Movement bosses favor melees as moving for ranged means dps loss. You can`t position 8 ranged in a way that they don`t have to move if they (or someone near them) is targeted at hardmode/Nightmare. Melees just have to follow the boss. If a melee gets a swipe hit if hes not the target, he`s just plain bad. So no mechanic a range can ignore here either.

Jarg&Sorno: Can`t think of any mechanic here either. Sents/Mara are a beast in this fight as they can shut down Sorno by themselfs.

Crusher: Pretty sure stomp hits everyone. Meelees don`t have to evate the rockthrow aoe, as he won`t hit himself with a rock obviously... Melee > ranged in this fight

Fabricator: This boss is a joke even with two melees on the puzzle box puzzeling is easily doable without getting any dmg other than the sticky mines (you can press buttons without triggering proximity mines even as melee). Still puzzling is easier done with ranged one. But without any melees you probably will have problems with clearing the stun mines on the bottom. Fight can be done easily with up to 3 melee dps though.

Karrage: Melee friendly. Can ignore the gravity bomb as meelee, and can ignore the interrupt, as meelees don`t cast.

So TL:DR is see a total of ONE boss ability ranges can ignore. Doesn`t seem too range heavy for me.

To the other point, that people don`t want to have melees in their raid. Two possibilities, either they already have enough of them (i don`t want to have more than 2 maybe 3 to roll on the same loot), or they are just plain bad and don`t know the benefits melees can bring to the raid.

I'm a leader of casual 2 day raiding guild. That doesn't mean we do not approach raiding seriously - on the contrary, it means our raiding time is very precious.

 

To get the best chance on majority of bosses I will always pick ranged over melee. Playing melee in this game is so punishing. There isn't a SINGLE fight where melee have any advantage over ranged.

 

That needs to be addressed as one of the absolute top priorities in my opinion as it affects all melee raiders.

 

 

Here's a summary of my observations on how melees are screwed on almost every boss:

 

ETERNITY VAULT

 

Annihilation Droid XRR-3: Stomp causes damage, pushback causes lost DPS time, longer distance to hide behind the pillar. Ranged don't get affected by either of those mechanisms.

 

Gharj: Stomp causes damage and lost DPS time, ranged not affected.

 

Pylon: lets say it's OK (apart of again more dps time lost when part of panel pressing rotation)

 

Infernal Council: this boss is a joke anyway

 

Soa: a LOT of dps time lost when switching to mind traps

 

KARAGGA'S PALACE

 

Bonetrasher: ranged give you more options with placement, melee need to be near the boss and get hit by swipe much more often, they make almost constant DPS on the other hand which is a bit compensative but still ranged can be placed anywhere.

 

Jarg and Sorno: not that bad, can split the raid. still easier with all ranged.

 

Foreman Crusher: stomp

 

G4-B3 Heavy Fabricator: very melee unfriendly - can't place them on puzzle, they can't dps from upper platform, they often get hit by missles.

 

Karagga: nightmare for melee because of the oil patches being placed near the boss only. higher chance to be hit by odd mouse droid, if the get pulled to the person affected by the "white beam" they lose dps.

 

 

So 10 out of 10 bosses are easier with ranged DPS used, some to a greater degree than others. There is absolutely no reason to take melee to most fights and it must be changed as I want every single of my guild members to be able to enjoy the content and not tell them that because of our progression goals its better they sit the fight.

 

My suggestions: introduce punishing mechanisms affecting ranged only to the EVEN degree, re-think interrupt importance and giving interrupts to ranged, give melee more significant boss debuffs (to the point they will be required to beat the content).

We cleared HM KP 2 nights ago our first time in there with absolutely no range, just melee.

Can be done good sir. Range are so easy mode anyway, bring melee and make things more interesting!

We cleared HM KP 2 nights ago our first time in there with absolutely no range, just melee.

 

Can be done good sir. Range are so easy mode anyway, bring melee and make things more interesting!

You obviously did not do 16-man nightmare.

But back to the topic. Yes, I fully agree that Melee should have some kind of a bonus to DPS or whatever for being in melee. Most MMOs have ranged doing more damage flat or giving them an edge through mainly instant abilities and movement. In this game even Melee's have channeled stand-still abilities (Master Strike, Telekinetic Throw and the likes)

You obviously did not do 16-man nightmare.

 

 

But back to the topic. Yes, I fully agree that Melee should have some kind of a bonus to DPS or whatever for being in melee. Most MMOs have ranged doing more damage flat or giving them an edge through mainly instant abilities and movement. In this game even Melee's have channeled stand-still abilities (Master Strike, Telekinetic Throw and the likes)

nah we did 8man HM. What is the point of doing a 16 man NM mode...honestly

We cleared HM KP 2 nights ago our first time in there with absolutely no range, just melee.

 

Can be done good sir. Range are so easy mode anyway, bring melee and make things more interesting!

So then you agree that not using melee makes raiding easier.

Please note the OP didn't say you couldn't succeed with melee in a raid.

Its not like the OP is making this up. Most of the raid bosses and even 5 man bosses in this game have mechanics that ranged can ignore while melee can not.

So then you agree that not using melee makes raiding easier.

 

Please note the OP didn't say you couldn't succeed with melee in a raid.

 

Its not like the OP is making this up. Most of the raid bosses and even 5 man bosses in this game have mechanics that ranged can ignore while melee can not.

Oh yeah definately, ranged have it easy mode in this game. But the operations in this game are a joke anyway. Just the mechanics are so simple.

I mean they practically give you free geaar. Puzzle bosses? really. 1v1 your mob till it dies. Gharg, turret boss,

these bosses are a joke. The only challenging fight is the first pull of EV lol and SOA cause it bugs.

Oh yeah definately, ranged have it easy mode in this game. But the operations in this game are a joke anyway. Just the mechanics are so simple.

 

I mean they practically give you free geaar. Puzzle bosses? really. 1v1 your mob till it dies. Gharg, turret boss,

 

these bosses are a joke. The only challenging fight is the first pull of EV lol and SOA cause it bugs.

Whether the normal and hardmode raids are a joke or not isn't what is being discussed. Why a raid leader should bring melee is being discussed. We have established via anecdote that not bringing melee allows a raid to ignore a number of mechanics which are supposed to stress healers and force player movement.

So the question is asked 'why bring melee if you have another choice?'

Arguments like 'if you can't do it with melee in the group means you suck' really don't have a place here, as that is what you are implying. As no one is claiming it can't be done.

I totally agree with the OP.

Our guild has cleared NMM KP and EV and, without a doubt, given the choice we always take a ranged dps over melee for the reasons outlined in this thread.

One solution I heard was to scale ranged dps in terms of distance. I would tend to favor a slight dps advantage to melee due to all the running around and mechanics they must avoid. Of course, that may imbalance PVP, like I give a rip about that.

We bring four or five melee on our 16 player nightmare clears. None of us have had any trouble. I play a sentinel and feel that I have some of the strongest abilities in the game for surviving.

What part of 'no one is saying you can't use melee and succeed' is hard to understand?

The discussion is regarding the encounter mechanics and how they interact between melee and ranged.

Maybe you can post regarding that?

Make ranged damage decrease with distance, with full damage dealt only at melee range. Ranged DPS will still have their ranged utility for fights like Fabricator, but from a pure DPS point of view leaders won't have to tell melee DPS to feck off anymore.

Thats just so wrong

I'm gonna bring this back - I can't count how many people I know left the game cause they rolled melee and the game was not fun for them.

Any thoughts on class changes in 1.2?

I'd just like to take a moment and say, Welcome to MMOs 101! Ranged vs melee has been and will always be a problem in MMOs. Melee generally have the hardest time staying on a boss, have more mechanics to dodge, and, when brought, only add to the difficulty of fights as the more people you stack up next to a boss, the more people are at risk for a boss's "dont stand near me" damage.

Now that said, good or great melee are generally some of the best players in the game and (aside from having an over abundance of melee in a potential raider pool) are viewed as an asset by raid leaders and do not have issues getting into raids. I would honestly say the bigger problem is that any MMO veteran knows (or should know) this melee unfriendliness issue and still we find hordes of people rolling melee characters and then complaining. Or the other problem is if you run a raiding guild, why are you allowing so many melee in the first place? Sidelining in favor of a ranged class is purely a lack of forsight on the raid leaders part as one should be restricting the allowable raid slots to slant in favor of ranged out the gate. Though in the case of 8 man operations in this game, I can tell you all the content can be easily defeated by having a balanced mix of ranged and melee dps (2 and 2). Should melee get a free handout for having it tougher? Nope. Personally, I (who plays a sentinel) prefer the added challenge placed upon me. Should BW alter fights to be more favorable to melee? Nope. Part of the reason for the status being this way (other than enforcing class balanced raids) is to allow them more diversity in fight design.

The OP mentioned Fabricator being almost impossible with all melee. This is true. And it is by design. You would not be able to have fights like this if raid comp allowed for all melee. However, melee are also the work horse dps for the fight as they are always on the boss or clearing the stun droids for the tanks.

I play a healer and dont mind melee. I actually prefer melee that is stacked due to me being able to use aoe heals . Ranged classes like to spread them selves out all over the place and make it hard on the healer. It's worse when I have to run to get close enough to a tank or to the ranged dps, because that ranged dps likes to position himself so far away, but that's a matter of communicating to him that he needs to be closer.

It's a bit rediculous that some people here are calling for ranged dps classes to be nerfed based on distance. How about the melee classes become better buffed offensively or defensively when in proximity to other melee ops members, rather than calling for a nerf of another class because of perceived desireability.