For obvious reasons, Jedi Knights/Sith Warriors are a very popular class.

Other ranged classes are not.

I myself play a melee class.

When making groups for HM Flashpoints I cringe at the idea of inviting more melee DPS than myself. I already know what a strain I put on the group and how much harder some fights are being melee. Hell, the idea of a pure melee group is enough to drive off some of the less confident healers.

And yet, if I ever want to get a group going, I'm going to have to accept further melee DPS at some point or I'll never get going.

Sure, we have Interrupts on a short CD, but most of the time we use them to interrupt abilities that would only hit us anyway. Flamethrowers, Cleaves and all kind of other ******** is all just designed to hurt melees while ranged DPS get to watch their favorite show on TV while doing a boss-fight.

Some encounters are more tolerant than others, but most encounters heavily favor ranged. Hell, some are down-right impossible with a pure melee group unless you somehow exploit it. (Battle for Ilum 2nd Boss)

I'm frankly sick of being a second choice DPS just because of the fact that I'm melee. I know my stuff, I do my job, but nothing can ever get me to the point where I can say, "this would have been harder without a melee".

I do not get why game designers in MMOs insist on continuously making life hard for melee classes.

Melees already by design have:

-Less overview of the situation

-Less flexibility when it comes to positioning

-Less targeting flexibility

-Are more exposed when dealing damage.

Instead of encounters accommodating for these inherent weaknesses, some exploit them.

If you then compare to how *********** easy some of these fights are with pure ranged DPS I can't help but vent my rage towards the developers on these forums.

Signed.

i play a jug tank myself.

Why do you think nearly everyone plays a ranged.

I make my own groups, and NEVER bring melee along, i always say " sorry mate, group already has a melee "

Man, I know how you feel! I'm the only range in my core group that I run HMs with, and that's because I'm the healer! We run them with an Assassin Tank/Assassin DPS/Marauder DPS/Sorc Healer. At this time we have cleared all but the new dungeon (our tank is having issues with using the gun).

From my experience, healing these HMs has been rather annoying. Things that a range would easily take out and not get hit, do damage to the melee because they have to run in there. This wouldn't be an issue if every normal didn't hit like a elite. Just because they have less life shouldn't classify them as a normal, but that's a whole new argument.

Another thing that doesn't help is that all the boss mechanics seem to only cause issues for melee, while the range are tucked safely away. My friends are currently working on leveling range classes now, because they are fed up with the amount of non-melee friendly battles in this game. The simple fact that these mechanics caused that says a lot about how messed up the system currently is.

It's nearly impossible to find random group for melee DPS (sith assassin) on my server. Also full melee group = almost guaranteed boss enrage due to DPS loss during maneuvering around puddles of fire, mines, exploding bots, etc. etc.

Thus after hundred(s) of hours spent to find groups - respec'ed into tank and now feel myself even worse shouting "LF1M - rDPS".

I agree. I think melee classes need good defenses in-general for the PvE stuff. As a tank spec'd Juggernaut I need constant heals in any PvE stuff beyond solo difficulty. Tonight I was doing Directive 7 and the bosses were freaking burning me down even with a Operative healing me. Oh and if the encounter requires me to be mobile my DPS is like zero. I've been trying to get good gear to make my toon tougher, I've got a few pieces with 126 rating and he's wearing a lot of purple (armor is at ~44%), so it's not like I'm trying to get-by main tanking with quest greens. That wasn't even the hardmode stuff yet.

Ranged classes do better in PvP too. I have a Sorcerer alt that was topping the boards for Warzones at lvl 14. That's never happened for my Juggernaut -even at lvl 49. I think melee classes need something to make up for the lack of range and mobility. I almost never see Marauders PvPing on my server. I'm not sure what it is but something is missing, like self-heals or something. Melee classes are really squishy and especially as a tank I'm always taking fire.

I'm at the point now with the high level stuff where I don't want to go anywhere without either my healer companion or a Sorcerer backing me up. Maybe I need better consumables?

Remember that melee classes usually have more mobility, since they generally don't have abilities with cast times, and can dps while moving as good as stationary. I don't know, I kinda got used to melee being handicaped (it's the same in other mmos I've played) so it doesn't bother me that much

I'm not sure how you figure that. If I log on to any of my ranged characters I can constantly fire at a target from anywhere up to 30m away. If I see a AOE target or fire on the ground I can move out of the way while still attacking my target, whether it's stationary or not. Yeah ranged has more channeled attacks but they have 30m range. If I'm melee and I move farther than 5m away from a target I lose like 90% of my attacks.

Also, in the MMOs I've played melee classes usually have better armor or self heals to make up for the lack of range.

I like taking my Merc into Warzones and finding a good hiding spot to hose the melee classes with blaster fire from 30m away while they cluster next to each other mixing it up. Most times they don't even notice me, they just pad my kill count.

First off, yes, there are a lot of fights, probably the majority that are easier with ranged.

Having said that, Sorc / Sage are by far the most popular classes. More times then not there are 3 or 4 of them in my Ops groups ... and that's on my main and on my alt.

Sorc / Sage = Ranged ...

As far as *chasing* off healers ... the game is about DPS, not heals ... what gives us healers a hard time are BAD DPS not killing stuff fast enough. So if you want to have healers like you ... step up your game and kill stuff faster.

Yes, fights are not melee friendly ... no, melee is not the most popular class by far ... not even close.

First off, yes, there are a lot of fights, probably the majority that are easier with ranged.

 

Having said that, Sorc / Sage are by far the most popular classes. More times then not there are 3 or 4 of them in my Ops groups ... and that's on my main and on my alt.

 

Sorc / Sage = Ranged ...

 

As far as *chasing* off healers ... the game is about DPS, not heals ... what gives us healers a hard time are BAD DPS not killing stuff fast enough. So if you want to have healers like you ... step up your game and kill stuff faster.

 

Yes, fights are not melee friendly ... no, melee is not the most popular class by far ... not even close.

Yeah I think Sorcerers are really strong. Probably the best all-around class in the game ATM. If you don't have at least one Sorcerer healer in your group you might as well forget it.

Yes the overwhelming majority of PvE fights punish melee bc in the standard MMO paradigm melee does more damage than ranged.

However SWtOR Range and Melee do not deal widely different damage. Their is a slight damage favor in melee and I mean slight but overall DPS ranged owns on a stick bc they don't spend a third of a fight running away, knocked back, ect ect. Unless your a sniper/gunslinger then well they have issues too bc of their total dependence on immobility so bosses like Bonethraser who doesn't have a real threat table it totally screws them as well

I do hope they will add more anti-ranged boss fights in the future there are a couple that do punish range but right now the entire game caters far more to range than melee instead of a nice balance.

I've seen both melee and ranged be bads. I've seen melee bring stellar DPS and overall awareness.

IF you really are ditching melees, especially for HM's, you are probably the weak link.

Im a jug tank, have tanked em all, and there's no "crazy" difficulty to do so.

I've seen both melee and ranged be bads. I've seen melee bring stellar DPS and overall awareness.

 

IF you really are ditching melees, especially for HM's, you are probably the weak link.

 

Im a jug tank, have tanked em all, and there's no "crazy" difficulty to do so.

Yeah of course but if you're talking about the general PVE fight mechanics it's not really a question of who's the "bad". If a stationary Boss is standing in fire, then the melee have 2 basic choices, they can stand in the fire and keep attacking or they can move out of the fire and stop attacking. Ranged DPS don't really run into that problem as much. You probably had a Sorcerer/ranged DPS or two backing you up. Try running with 3 melee and an operative.

Yeah of course but if you're talking about the general PVE fight mechanics it's not really a question of who's the "bad". If a stationary Boss is standing in fire, then the melee have 2 basic choices, they can stand in the fire and keep attacking or they can move out of the fire and stop attacking. Ranged DPS don't really run into that problem as much. You probably had a Sorcerer/ranged DPS or two backing you up. Try running with 3 melee and an operative.

Or the tank can move out of the fire... Or that melee dps can interrupt the spell that causes the fire... Or they can switch targets like they should, depending on the fight. There is no fight a melee can't do. And if you're making your healer suffer, that is purely your fault , as a melee. I've ran 3 melee and a bh healer, all but the dps being undergeared to hell, and we did just fine. We just made sure to interrupt any ability that could cause any damage to the tank or to us, and burned everything down with haste.

Bulwark comes to mind. I can't imagine a healer being able to handle the load 2 melee DPS rather than 1 melee/1 ranged because of Bulwark's AOE. Combine that with a super tight enrage timer and this fight can be a coin flip if you bring a melee DPS.

There are also plenty of bosses that can wipe a group by almost instagibbing their melee (Spinning guy on False Emp even if it's easy to get out of).

For obvious reasons, Jedi Knights/Sith Warriors are a very popular class.

 

Other ranged classes are not.

 

I myself play a melee class.

 

When making groups for HM Flashpoints I cringe at the idea of inviting more melee DPS than myself. I already know what a strain I put on the group and how much harder some fights are being melee. Hell, the idea of a pure melee group is enough to drive off some of the less confident healers.

 

And yet, if I ever want to get a group going, I'm going to have to accept further melee DPS at some point or I'll never get going.

 

Sure, we have Interrupts on a short CD, but most of the time we use them to interrupt abilities that would only hit us anyway. Flamethrowers, Cleaves and all kind of other ******** is all just designed to hurt melees while ranged DPS get to watch their favorite show on TV while doing a boss-fight.

 

Some encounters are more tolerant than others, but most encounters heavily favor ranged. Hell, some are down-right impossible with a pure melee group unless you somehow exploit it. (Battle for Ilum 2nd Boss)

 

I'm frankly sick of being a second choice DPS just because of the fact that I'm melee. I know my stuff, I do my job, but nothing can ever get me to the point where I can say, "this would have been harder without a melee".

 

 

I do not get why game designers in MMOs insist on continuously making life hard for melee classes.

 

Melees already by design have:

-Less overview of the situation

-Less flexibility when it comes to positioning

-Less targeting flexibility

-Are more exposed when dealing damage.

 

Instead of encounters accommodating for these inherent weaknesses, some exploit them.

 

If you then compare to how *********** easy some of these fights are with pure ranged DPS I can't help but vent my rage towards the developers on these forums.

Yea I (Dpsmando/Cmedic) play quite often with a dps speced guard friend many fights arn't real frindly to him. But there are fights where you guys shine ESS HM/NM 2nd boss for one where rnged DPsrs are cringe-worthy. Hopefully as new content gets added there will be more variation to instance/fight choice. I really hope so anyway, because there is no way rdprs will get a rnged interupt till you guys get some luven.

Bulwark comes to mind. I can't imagine a healer being able to handle the load 2 melee DPS rather than 1 melee/1 ranged because of Bulwark's AOE. Combine that with a super tight enrage timer and this fight can be a coin flip if you bring a melee DPS.

 

There are also plenty of bosses that can wipe a group by almost instagibbing their melee (Spinning guy on False Emp even if it's easy to get out of).

since the nerf he's a tad easier to heal duo melee, Not something I enjoy healing through but easily doable.

Edit but I will admit when I'm heal speced xtra melee for the D7 instance as a whole is unatractive particuarly for a pug grp. Guild not so much.

Are we talking all melee is being avoided or just for the DPS?

I've been doing groups mostly with sith juggs as tanks and I prefer that (as a healer) than getting stuck with a powertech. Maybe I've just been lucky... or I've just had bad experiences finding people that know how to play a powertech... dunno.

Are we talking all melee is being avoided or just for the DPS?

 

I've been doing groups mostly with sith juggs as tanks and I prefer that (as a healer) than getting stuck with a powertech. Maybe I've just been lucky... or I've just had bad experiences finding people that know how to play a powertech... dunno.

the discusion was about melee DPS vs rnged DPS not tanks if that helps