There are so many fights in the newer content that abuse and make melee the poorest choice to bring for dps. How about we attempt to get some balance and have some hardship thrown to the currently all powerful gunslinger?

 

a few random diversions thrown out on players more than 10m away from the boss would be amusing to me.

Edited October 19, 2013 by FalmeseReb

Newer content? Heck I swtiched to sniper in 1.2 for partly that reason.

 

Ranged dps aren't safe just because they aren't being pulled, though. There's certainly a lot of fights where you have to keep moving, or suddenly need to move. I don't think there are many fights in this game that prefer, melee, though. WoW was typically the same way, thought they did throw a fight in every now and then that punished range, as if to say "look, we're playing fair, right?".

Just a few I thought of, but I don't play ranged.

 

Terror From Beyond

Kel'sara: targets ranged in P3

Kephess: lots of movement

TFB: Dodging spit in P1; movement and mele range in P2

 

Scum and Villany

Dash'roode: ranged stuck on adds; frequent movement between generators

Titan 6: Dodge air strike; pull in during soft enrage

Thrasher: Dodge merc missles; boss kiting and cleave avoidance

 

Dread Forrest

Nefra: ranged usually stuck pulling droid from group

Draxus: Bulwarks require mele range

Brontes: Fingers require mele range

 

Dread Palace

Council: Ranged stuck kiting Raptus?

Maybe others, but I have to run.

There are already some encounters that do that. For instance, the Gold Team of the city boss in Scum and Villainy has an ability that prevents Snipers from being in cover for several seconds.

 

Some of the newer fights actually favor melee DPS. For instance, the waves of adds that contain Bulwarks during the fight with Gate Commander Draxus in Dread Fortress. Melee DPS can use their gap closers to get within melee range of the mobs under the shields quickly whereas Snipers would have to waste time running to them.

The point of having melee DPS is to have highly sustainable DPS but make the fight somewhat more difficult for that trade off. Rather than the game "hating" melee exactly, I personally see it as adding more of a depth of difficulty in the fights and requires your raiders to have a little more awareness. In NiM DGs, someone above mentioned, it requires that everyone not place red circles in the middle of the room where adds spawn. In phase 2, the tanks need to be more wary of melee getting puddles so that the kiting gets sped up.

 

That being said, I absolutely agree that some fights are just plain mean for melee DPS.

There are so many fights in the newer content that abuse and make melee the poorest choice to bring for dps. How about we attempt to get some balance and have some hardship thrown to the currently all powerful gunslinger?

 

a few random diversions thrown out on players more than 10m away from the boss would be amusing to me.

 

If that was true you'd just stack snipers in melee range though and keep healers out since the accuracy debuff doesn't matter to them... Wouldn't make rdps any less powerful really.

 

The problem is it is pretty hard to make a fight where melee dps is straight up better than ranged dps, since ranged can always stack and become de-facto melee dps anyway. In all the time I have played sw:tor, wow, and others, I can think of remarkably few fights were melee dps is strictly better than ranged, as its just relatively difficult to craft a mechanic that enforces this in a non-stupid or cheesy way

Edited October 19, 2013 by OneShotXV

Well,as a tradeoff mdps don't have to deal with ability pushback, they don't have to interrupt casts to strafe 3 meters to avoid aoe (except MS/Ravage), heavy movement doesn't halve their damage output and they get better def cds and faster interrupts. Yeah, 4 melee would make some fights way harder, but I'd still take 2 mdps + 2 rdps composition over 4 rdps.

There are so many fights in the newer content that abuse and make melee the poorest choice to bring for dps. How about we attempt to get some balance and have some hardship thrown to the currently all powerful gunslinger?

 

a few random diversions thrown out on players more than 10m away from the boss would be amusing to me.

 

Please no! Diversion like what Yellow of Operations Chief does to Snipers/Gunslingers would be be like a boss jumping out of melee's reach when their Force Charge are off cooldown...

 

Come to think of it, in boss mechanics with AoE raid wide damage, Lightning Sorcs have their casting pushed back. Can't say if Arsenal Mercs have 100% pushback protection. Snipers/Slingers on the other hand of 100% pushback protection from cover 100% of the time as well as Hunker Down/Entrench on a 1 min cooldown to protect them from knockbacks. Atm Mercs have the same thing in Hydraulic Overrides (which is better for that purpose since theirs is on a ~30? sec cooldown.

 

Like guy above mentioned there are some mechanics that can knock people out of cover. Classic example is the adds that jump out in NiM Styrak. But it can be alleviated using Entrench/Hunker Down if that raid calls it out early and the players pops the ability out in time.

Edited October 21, 2013 by paowee

Bioware is doing a bit better at improving the situation for melee vs ranged. Still not great, but at least Titan VI is no longer current content…

 

• Nefra: no one cares, but ranged slightly preferred since it avoids red circling the tanks (slight advantage ranged)
  
• Draxus: melee have shorter interrupts and no Bulwark issues, but they also take longer to get in position (balanced)
  
• Grob'thok: melee are essentially unaffected by the frequent knock-up or the movement; slightly penalized due to cheetos-related downtime (melee)
  
• Corrupter Zero: grav vortex sucks, and add uptime is hard as melee. conversely, who wants an explody mine thingy? mostly, this comes down to most melee lacking AoE (slight advantage ranged)
  
• Brontes: melee have better defensive CDs, but uptime and target swapping is a massive pain (advantage ranged)
  
• Bestia: no one cares, but ranged slightly preferred due to target swapping on the tentacles and avoiding their slap attack (slight advantage ranged)
  
• Tyrans: you want an even balance here to avoid chewing up squares at too high a rate in one group or another (balanced, but only with good tanks)
  
• Calphayus: no one cares. at all. (balanced)
  
• Raptus: biconal sucks for melee, and bad tanks can make this fight completely unbearable (advantage ranged)
  
• Dread Masters: you almost need a melee for Calphayus, and it helps a ton on Raptus as well. two melee, ideally with strong AoE options, are strongly encouraged by the fight design (perfectly balanced)
  

 

Of the current content, the Dread Masters are probably the best balanced for melee vs ranged. Of the rest, most fights are slightly or strongly favoring ranged. Still, it's better than S&V or TfB, both of which 100% favor ranged.

Just a few I thought of, but I don't play ranged.

 

Terror From Beyond

Kel'sara: targets ranged in P3

Kephess: lots of movement

TFB: Dodging spit in P1; movement and mele range in P2

 

Scum and Villany

Dash'roode: ranged stuck on adds; frequent movement between generators

Titan 6: Dodge air strike; pull in during soft enrage

Thrasher: Dodge merc missles; boss kiting and cleave avoidance

 

Dread Forrest

Nefra: ranged usually stuck pulling droid from group

Draxus: Bulwarks require mele range

Brontes: Fingers require mele range

 

Dread Palace

Council: Ranged stuck kiting Raptus?

Maybe others, but I have to run.

While many of the bosses and mechanics you mentioned are very valid arguments there's a couple things I noticed.

For Nefra you're wasting your Rdps's time+dps by having them attempt to pull the droid, its on a random table and tbh if people can't pay attention and move out of red they probably should go back to EV/KP.

For Kel'sara it can go either way, if dps are killing adds then they can be targeted as well, while not as likely, still has happened to me a couple times. (NiM only, as hm adds are a joke.)

Kephess isn't too bad for ranged, they can pretty much hang out in the middle until just before he targets someone, however for nanites it can be a PIA.

 

I was planning on listing more but then realized that the only class that can truly make 90% of those arguments obsolete are snipers/slingers. Their roll + hunker down(SS) make the fights trivial.

More or less both classes have their ups and downs, I do agree that bosses should pull those in cover to make fights at least a little challenging for snipers and slingers. They can already ignore doom and other mechanics that hurt the rest of the classes, they should have something that hinders them, or make mechanics in future fights kill them through the roll. I'd also like to say that I play a slinger, sniper, and a sentinel, so this isn't some melee whining about op ranged.

I think it's no surprise this argument has heated up since Slinger DPS has gone through the roof after 2.0. The deal used to be (and should be, imo): Melee DPS are more risky to bring along (require more positionig skill and survivability awareness) but pull higher numbers. Ranged are the safe option but don't hit that hard.

 

It's extremely difficult to favour melee DPS via fight mechanics, although devs are clearly improving here. I do think melee and ranged DPS should be balanced via potential damage output primarily.

 

As to balance among different ranged DPS classes: I think we all agree devs have gone too far with Slingers/Snipers, as they have already stated themselves.

 

I've been switching mains between my Sent and my (Hybrid)Slinger back and forth since 1.2., but I have a slight preference for my Sent, as playing him is simply a bit more fun to me. For pure effectiveness in progress raiding. I'd have to main my Slinger atm, though...

Bioware is doing a bit better at improving the situation for melee vs ranged. Still not great, but at least Titan VI is no longer current content…

 

• Nefra: no one cares, but ranged slightly preferred since it avoids red circling the tanks (slight advantage ranged)
  
• Draxus: melee have shorter interrupts and no Bulwark issues, but they also take longer to get in position (balanced)
  
• Grob'thok: melee are essentially unaffected by the frequent knock-up or the movement; slightly penalized due to cheetos-related downtime (melee)
  
• Corrupter Zero: grav vortex sucks, and add uptime is hard as melee. conversely, who wants an explody mine thingy? mostly, this comes down to most melee lacking AoE (slight advantage ranged)
  
• Brontes: melee have better defensive CDs, but uptime and target swapping is a massive pain (advantage ranged)
  
• Bestia: no one cares, but ranged slightly preferred due to target swapping on the tentacles and avoiding their slap attack (slight advantage ranged)
  
• Tyrans: you want an even balance here to avoid chewing up squares at too high a rate in one group or another (balanced, but only with good tanks)
  
• Calphayus: no one cares. at all. (balanced)
  
• Raptus: biconal sucks for melee, and bad tanks can make this fight completely unbearable (advantage ranged)
  
• Dread Masters: you almost need a melee for Calphayus, and it helps a ton on Raptus as well. two melee, ideally with strong AoE options, are strongly encouraged by the fight design (perfectly balanced)
  

 

Of the current content, the Dread Masters are probably the best balanced for melee vs ranged. Of the rest, most fights are slightly or strongly favoring ranged. Still, it's better than S&V or TfB, both of which 100% favor ranged.

 

Where's your math to back all of this up

 

Nefra- doesn't matter, having at least 1 ranged to pull aggro on the non-tank adds helps, preferably a Sorc/Sage

Draxus- if you're taking that long to kill the Corruptors where multiple adds are getting multiple casts off, your group sucks and it doesn't matter what the comp is.

Grob- doesn't matter, all DPS and all heals are screwed by the interrupt. If anything no melee wins because of the magnet.

Zero- if anything, melee wins because you don't need to track mine.

Brontes- fingers are a joke post nerf, and nothing new as far as melee goes here. Be good and have a gap closer up at all times or be bad and be bad.

Bestia- comp does not matter

Tyrans- anything other than 3+ melee doesn't matter

Calph- doesn't matter

Raptus- doesn't matter, if you can't avoid cleaves, you're a bad melee

Council- if anything, you only want 1 melee. Raptus should be kited by a ranged, very few groups will have the heals required to facetank Raptus. I know, I've done it. Out of the top 10 kills, we were the only ones to facetank him and now that we're back to our 1 melee 3 ranged normal comp, we don't do it anymore.

 

It seems we disagree on almost everything anywhere. Thing is, all of our players disagree with 90% of what you've said here. Sounds like you just need to play with a better caliber of gamers?

Edited October 23, 2013 by countpopeula

Where's your math to back all of this up

 

I don't even know where to go with that. Whatever.

 

Nefra- doesn't matter, having at least 1 ranged to pull aggro on the non-tank adds helps, preferably a Sorc/Sage

 

We've never bothered doing anything with the adds whatsoever. Even for tanks, they're easy to move out of. It's simply easier for positioning if the tanks don't have to move. I'm still fairly certain that this fight can be three-manned in HM, so it's not like it matters.

 

Draxus- if you're taking that long to kill the Corruptors where multiple adds are getting multiple casts off, your group sucks and it doesn't matter what the comp is.

 

In the quadruple corrupter spawn, you're going to get two casts from at least two corrupters. It's not at all hard to lock them down with coordination and healers who aren't AFK, but you're still going to get multiple casts.

 

Grob- doesn't matter, all DPS and all heals are screwed by the interrupt. If anything no melee wins because of the magnet.

 

You need better tanks. The magnet is completely ignorable for the melee if the boss is correctly positioned. The ranged actually have a slightly harder time of it, since it's very tempting to just plop down wherever and turret the boss. Not that it's difficult to move out of the way of the magnet track, but still.

 

My point stands about the knock-up. Melee don't care; ranged get interrupted out the wazoo without Entrench or Hydraulic Overrides.

 

Zero- if anything, melee wins because you don't need to track mine.

 

If you have reasonable AoE and rapid mobility on your melee, then yes. I wouldn't bring four Infiltration Shadows or Scrapper Scoundrels though. I don't think either melee or ranged are punished particularly heavily on this fight.

 

Brontes- fingers are a joke post nerf, and nothing new as far as melee goes here. Be good and have a gap closer up at all times or be bad and be bad.

 

Not all melee DPS have a gap closer, as you should be well aware. And the fingers aren't a joke, they're just easier than they used to be. Healers still have to work pretty hard to keep up with the damage. Defensive CDs are still a point worth considering. What was it you were saying about Sorc DPS taking too much damage?

 

Bestia- comp does not matter

 

I listed exactly why comp matters for this fight. I wouldn't have a problem doing it with four melee, but people should be aware of the disadvantages and advantages.

 

Tyrans- anything other than 3+ melee doesn't matter

 

I don't like running it with four ranged either, for exactly the same reason.

 

Calph- doesn't matter

 

Exactly. Just don't bring four DPS with extremely high setup times and you'll be fine, but that says nothing about melee vs ranged.

 

Raptus- doesn't matter, if you can't avoid cleaves, you're a bad melee

 

It's not the cleave, it's the AoE circle. Obviously it's avoidable, but ranged simply don't have to worry about it. Just because a mechanic can be handled doesn't mean it's not a disadvantage.

 

Council- if anything, you only want 1 melee. Raptus should be kited by a ranged, very few groups will have the heals required to facetank Raptus. I know, I've done it. Out of the top 10 kills, we were the only ones to facetank him and now that we're back to our 1 melee 3 ranged normal comp, we don't do it anymore.

 

We were facetanking Raptus (with a ranged DPS, no less) and were able to clear the phase with that strategy, but we ultimately decided that it was a little more controlled to kite him, and it does make the healing easier.

 

It seems we disagree on almost everything anywhere. Thing is, all of our players disagree with 90% of what you've said here. Sounds like you just need to play with a better caliber of gamers?

 

The people I'm playing with are fine. Sounds like you need to just make fewer assumptions? I was simply listing mechanics that penalize one DPS archetype or another. I'm not saying that I do or don't have trouble handling some or any of them. If you can't have a rational discussion without turning it into a slingfest of petty insults and judgmental behavior, then we're just going to keep bumping heads on everything anywhere.

We've never bothered doing anything with the adds whatsoever. Even for tanks, they're easy to move out of. It's simply easier for positioning if the tanks don't have to move. I'm still fairly certain that this fight can be three-manned in HM, so it's not like it matters.

 

In the quadruple corrupter spawn, you're going to get two casts from at least two corrupters. It's not at all hard to lock them down with coordination and healers who aren't AFK, but you're still going to get multiple casts.

 

You need better tanks. The magnet is completely ignorable for the melee if the boss is correctly positioned. The ranged actually have a slightly harder time of it, since it's very tempting to just plop down wherever and turret the boss. Not that it's difficult to move out of the way of the magnet track, but still.

 

Not all melee DPS have a gap closer, as you should be well aware. And the fingers aren't a joke, they're just easier than they used to be. Healers still have to work pretty hard to keep up with the damage. Defensive CDs are still a point worth considering. What was it you were saying about Sorc DPS taking too much damage?

 

The people I'm playing with are fine. Sounds like you need to just make fewer assumptions? I was simply listing mechanics that penalize one DPS archetype or another. I'm not saying that I do or don't have trouble handling some or any of them. If you can't have a rational discussion without turning it into a slingfest of petty insults and judgmental behavior, then we're just going to keep bumping heads on everything anywhere.

 

Let's argue some more.

 

I'm sure it can be 5manned, not 3. Damage is signif enough where you need two tanks and 2 heals. Also, dunno if one DPS is gonna get it done, this boss does in fact have an enrage timer. We just 3 DPS'd 16man HM though, which is totally laughable fight design. World first 8man kill FTW.

 

It's not hard to lock them down by killing one on each side before the second cast even starts, then it's single mob interrupts and if the group can't handle that between 4, they don't really have any business being in HM to begin with. EZ mode fight.

 

Multiple melee = more mining droids in melee on the boss = more moving out of melee range = ranged fight. We have 3 of the best tanks in the game running for our main group, when I say that I mean bads who aren't raid aware. We troll the magnet and Sorc pull people into it, but I'm assuming we're discussing average Joe raider here who probably isn't exactly heads up.

 

The fingers are a joke. You can't say they aren't, if the group is having issues with the fingers, then it is a poorly geared/bad group. We push after the second clone in our main group, just after the third in our Pub raids and we have absolutely no issues with this fight post nerf. If the group has healing issues, the DPS sucks and it's a miracle they got past the Overcharge Beam first two adds. WTB the old fingers phase back. Now even our Sorc can facetank the fingerbang phase. Straight EZ mode.

 

There is nothing in any of these fights that gives a disadvantage to ranged/melee other than Tyrans, and with good tanks and a proper strategy, that has even become fairly lawlstomp EZ mode with 3 melee. Granted we're elite players and others will have issues with this, it doesn't change the fact that only 1 out of 10 fights actually matters as far as group comp goes. Compare this with Fabricator, Z/T, Olok, or Styrak and I think they've made significant improvements to fights that don't respond to group comp. Anything other issues with any Dread fight that comes down to a ranged/melee bias is completely on the individual player skill level, they have nothing to do with whether the fight favors or doesn't. All of my points are valid, well founded and honestly not contestable, you're the one who brings personal beliefs into a logic battle. I play with one of the top groups in this game 2 nights a week (down to 1 since we cleared both instances in 2 hours tonight), we run multiple alt raids a week on characters we honestly aren't top notch at, and I run with a random roster group that sometimes doesn't have the best players. None of these have issues killing anything other than Council, and that's more because we don't have the patience to teach anyone else the fight yet.

Well, if you're an elite player, you can, of course, overcome any difficulty (hence the term "elite" ;-) Nobody was saying fights are impossible with melees: Many are just easier with more ranged dps, assuming that the available dps to compose your raid group of are equally skilled (and maybe not elite).

 

I'm not sure, if the fact that elite melee dps can outskill the challenges implemented by the devs means that the fights are actually well balanced for melee vs. ranged from a broader perspective...

 

In the end, L2P can be applied to almost anything discussed in the forums, but it's pretty much a killer phrase imho. Discussions rarely profit from it on a factual level, as seems to be the case here.

Edited October 24, 2013 by Ardarell_Solo

Well, if you're an elite player, you can, of course, overcome any difficulty (hence the term "elite" ;-) Nobody was saying fights are impossible with melees: Many are just easier with more ranged dps, assuming that the available dps to compose your raid group of are equally skilled (and maybe not elite).

 

I'm not sure, if the fact that elite melee dps can outskill the challenges implemented by the devs means that the fights are actually well balanced for melee vs. ranged from a broader perspective...

 

In the end, L2P can be applied to almost anything discussed in the forums, but it's pretty much a killer phrase imho. Discussions rarely profit from it on a factual level, as seems to be the case here.

 

Some refuse to see anything but their own point of view, even when confronted with overwhelming/incontestable evidence to the contrary. I admit when a fight has a ranged bias even for high end players, NiM Dread Guards prenerf was highly taxing on me and the more melee you added the worse it got. Tyrans is definitely a ranged fight, the only mechanic that really wipes groups is a rogue Thundering Blast. There isn't another fight where I say "Dayum, I should bring my Snipes to this one, Marauder is hurting the group". The point being is that I don't know if Keyboardninja actually understands the fights like he thinks because he's missing a few key mechanics, intended or not, that can favor one side. I could tell him to l2p, but it's such an easy route out. Last lockout was the first week we really understood each fight, this stuff is so ez mode that we lawled through everything except pre-nerf Brontes and Council, ignoring mechanics until we took our off-off-alts and started wiping. People don't argue to learn, they argue to be right. Hopefully someone reading takes something new out of the banter and applies it in game,

Edited October 24, 2013 by countpopeula

Feel free to share these key mechanics that hurt melee so much. Edited October 24, 2013 by ceazare