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!Big Concern!: Ranged vs. Melee DPS in FPs & Ops


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So since I assume you have not played a ranged class in this game yet or even most likely cleared most of the hard mode flash points and ops I will say this.

 

When bosses such as the first boss in EV and HK in False emperor use targeted abilities on the ground do you have to run around being able to do almost 0 damage? I would hope the answer to that is no, because if you have any skill you would just run around the boss still attacking while ranged who generally have to stand and cast can't.

 

Until you have played every roll in every situation you have no idea what other people are going through. Coming to the forums to complain that you don't feel like you are top dps doesn't seem very helpful for the state the game is currently in.

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All these debates and etc are valuable feedback imo and will(should) be read and followed by dev team somehow.

 

So many useless posts here. You guys cant understand what we mean as a lvl 30 melee class. Get to 50, get to do some heroics and then you'ill see.

 

 

Anyways; Agreed. Melee has huge disadvantage at end game.

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So since I assume you have not played a ranged class in this game yet or even most likely cleared most of the hard mode flash points and ops I will say this.

 

When bosses such as the first boss in EV and HK in False emperor use targeted abilities on the ground do you have to run around being able to do almost 0 damage? I would hope the answer to that is no, because if you have any skill you would just run around the boss still attacking while ranged who generally have to stand and cast can't.

 

Until you have played every roll in every situation you have no idea what other people are going through. Coming to the forums to complain that you don't feel like you are top dps doesn't seem very helpful for the state the game is currently in.

 

You are completely besides the point. This thread is not about being "top dps".

 

It is about a serious imbalance in some encounters, not all of course, where stacking ranged DPS makes one encounter trivial, while you might fail repeatedly on it with melee DPS without some more eloborate strategy and a considerable effort. That is the issue. This is an incentive to invite ranged DPS over melee. And this is happening already, I can tell you as someone who likes to lead raids.

 

Your examples are also weak. Those 2 mechanics are hardly just affecting ranged, and in any case, they are very manageable for a raid. But since you brought it up, for the first boss in EV: Ever thought about the fact that Ranged can just camp at the turrets, while melee have to run all the way to hide from the missile salvo and back again? Even worse, for hard mode/nightmare, you might want Ranged DPS just burning him still when he is doing the salvo, and have the healers heal through it. Guess what...melee can't do **** at the time, while ranged make it alot easier to beat the enrage timer.

 

Instead consider the encounters I mentioned in my 1st post, it is a completely different story: Try doing Final Boss Boarding Party HM with 2 Melee DPS in blue gear: A total nightmare. Then do it again with 2 equally geared ranged DPS. I dont even wanna talk about SOA hardmode/or nightmare again, because its just so blatantly obvious there

Edited by Perlexia
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So since I assume you have not played a ranged class in this game yet or even most likely cleared most of the hard mode flash points and ops I will say this.

 

When bosses such as the first boss in EV and HK in False emperor use targeted abilities on the ground do you have to run around being able to do almost 0 damage? I would hope the answer to that is no, because if you have any skill you would just run around the boss still attacking while ranged who generally have to stand and cast can't.

 

Until you have played every roll in every situation you have no idea what other people are going through. Coming to the forums to complain that you don't feel like you are top dps doesn't seem very helpful for the state the game is currently in.

 

You haven't thought this argument out at all. Every ranged DPS class has abilities they can use while moving. They're likely less DPS or less resource efficient, but they're not a complete DPS halt. Compare that to abilities that make melee move completely out of range where they can't do anything at all.

 

It's also a terrible example, because on that very same example, the mob stuns people in melee range then knocks them back 60 meters. How much damage are melee doing while running 60 meters vs. the ranged DPS who stood still for that entire time?

 

 

I've played with a very skilled marauder (the same player) through every flashpoint (including hard), and EV (including hard). In every case, our group would be stronger if that player were playing an equally geared ranged DPS. He would do more damage and I would need to do less healing.

Edited by Magdain
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It's the reason I picked a ranged DPS class... ranged classes are better FP/dungeon/Raid/Operations classes... in every game. If you didn't know that then I'm sorry, but there are workarounds. Don't ask for a ranged nerf or a melee buff, that's just annoying. You will have you role in every group, and it will probably be to take down adds and such. As a melee you should have higher defense or dodge chance or whatever it is in this game. If you want even more DPS you will be OP.
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It's the reason I picked a ranged DPS class... ranged classes are better FP/dungeon/Raid/Operations classes... in every game. If you didn't know that then I'm sorry, but there are workarounds. Don't ask for a ranged nerf or a melee buff, that's just annoying. You will have you role in every group, and it will probably be to take down adds and such. As a melee you should have higher defense or dodge chance or whatever it is in this game. If you want even more DPS you will be OP.

 

Again, Ranged DPS are not better in every game for every encounter. A certain game that has a vast array of tools to measure damage disproves this. Also, it is inevitable that both groups (ranged vs. melee) have advantages on certain encounters, but never it should never be case, that one group is always at the bigger disadvantage, which is the case right now. There simply is no drawback to stacking ranged on ANY encounter right now.

 

I was hoping this thread would not derail into a buff/nerf argument either, since there are more elegant solutions to solving this dilemma: Better and more balance encounter design. However I believe, granting melee some more mobility wouldn't hurt so much, I believe a buff could be a sensible action to alleviate the problem discussed here.

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My guild is running EV on hard. We're blocked at the ancient pylons on nightmare as we can't get the last pattern to activate. I'm not seeing that much of a disparity on at least operations bosses between the ranged an melee dps.

 

1. XRRS (droid boss) : Melee stand behind him and are generally just fine and dandy. Range stay out of the frontal arc knockback. Everyone clumps together right in front of the boss during the missle barrage (yes, even on hard/nightmare). AoE heals go down, Snipers rotate their Barrier. All melee/ranged dps continue going at it. Just before barrage ends, melee scoots this rear, ranged scoots out of knockback attack range. Everyone avoids the targeted missles that appear under their character's feet as appriopriate. Rinse and repeat. Fairly even fight for my guild's ranged and melee dps.

 

2. Gharj : Melee dps stand behind him and dps at max range. He has a large hitbox. Ranged stand near each island's edge. Melee does get hit with damage but ranged has to deal with being knocked back and traversing the lava. Without combat logs, I'm not sure if the melee dps or all ranged (dps and healers) take more damage. The knockbacks do interfere with cast timers and will remove gunslingers/snipers from cover. Seeing how that is pretty much the whole fight, the melee might have a slight edge on dpsing the boss but they probably do take more overall damage. It's not unheable nor are our healers hurting for energy/force/heat on this fight.

 

3. Pylons : A bunch of standard mobs and the occasional elite. Ranged has an advantage here only if the melee haven't figured out that the mobs spawn at the same place each time. It can also favor the ranged dps depending on who has to click the consol next. (No debuff on normal, 20 seconds(?) on hard, 40 secodns on nightmare). Melee do get shafted if the guardians are allowed to cast their reflective barriers.

 

4. Council (can't remember exact name) : Fairly even between ranged and melee. This fight boils down to whom is assigned to kill who. It's a 1 vs 1 for everyone with limited outside help (at least at the beginning).

 

5. Soa : From my guild's experience, this is a fairly even fight that only favors ranged dps at the end targeting mind traps. Phase 1 is a tank 'n spank that everyone can max dps. Phase 2 isn't much different as we keep melee dps on Soa unless a mind trap is within a short travel time (i.e. 10 m vs 25m+). Ranged focus on the mind traps first, then Soa. Everyone is constantly moving to avoid the lightning orbs. Our tank generally moves Soa if orbs look to be congregating on melee. Phase three isn't too much different. Melee do help range kill mind traps more, but move to the bosses general area just before his immunity shield is broken that way they don't lose any time on dpsing the boss.

 

Kraggas Palace : I do see an imbalance here in favor of ranged. If the melee are clumped, they can't tell who the rancor is going to swipe as easily as a ranged class will when the rancor focus on said range dpser. The adds seem to "show up" on the screen before they really do so everyone is more than capable of getting in range of them. The earthquake attacks mess everyone up bad on hard.

 

TDLR : But these are only observations made from my guild running normal, hard, and nightmare flash points. Positioning and strategy play a difference in perceived advantages and disadvantages of melee dps and ranged dps as illustrated above.

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My guild is running EV on hard. We're blocked at the ancient pylons on nightmare as we can't get the last pattern to activate. I'm not seeing that much of a disparity on at least operations bosses between the ranged an melee dps.

 

1. XRRS (droid boss) : Melee stand behind him and are generally just fine and dandy. Range stay out of the frontal arc knockback. Everyone clumps together right in front of the boss during the missle barrage (yes, even on hard/nightmare). AoE heals go down, Snipers rotate their Barrier. All melee/ranged dps continue going at it. Just before barrage ends, melee scoots this rear, ranged scoots out of knockback attack range. Everyone avoids the targeted missles that appear under their character's feet as appriopriate. Rinse and repeat. Fairly even fight for my guild's ranged and melee dps.

 

2. Gharj : Melee dps stand behind him and dps at max range. He has a large hitbox. Ranged stand near each island's edge. Melee does get hit with damage but ranged has to deal with being knocked back and traversing the lava. Without combat logs, I'm not sure if the melee dps or all ranged (dps and healers) take more damage. The knockbacks do interfere with cast timers and will remove gunslingers/snipers from cover. Seeing how that is pretty much the whole fight, the melee might have a slight edge on dpsing the boss but they probably do take more overall damage. It's not unheable nor are our healers hurting for energy/force/heat on this fight.

 

3. Pylons : A bunch of standard mobs and the occasional elite. Ranged has an advantage here only if the melee haven't figured out that the mobs spawn at the same place each time. It can also favor the ranged dps depending on who has to click the consol next. (No debuff on normal, 20 seconds(?) on hard, 40 secodns on nightmare). Melee do get shafted if the guardians are allowed to cast their reflective barriers.

 

4. Council (can't remember exact name) : Fairly even between ranged and melee. This fight boils down to whom is assigned to kill who. It's a 1 vs 1 for everyone with limited outside help (at least at the beginning).

 

5. Soa : From my guild's experience, this is a fairly even fight that only favors ranged dps at the end targeting mind traps. Phase 1 is a tank 'n spank that everyone can max dps. Phase 2 isn't much different as we keep melee dps on Soa unless a mind trap is within a short travel time (i.e. 10 m vs 25m+). Ranged focus on the mind traps first, then Soa. Everyone is constantly moving to avoid the lightning orbs. Our tank generally moves Soa if orbs look to be congregating on melee. Phase three isn't too much different. Melee do help range kill mind traps more, but move to the bosses general area just before his immunity shield is broken that way they don't lose any time on dpsing the boss.

 

Kraggas Palace : I do see an imbalance here in favor of ranged. If the melee are clumped, they can't tell who the rancor is going to swipe as easily as a ranged class will when the rancor focus on said range dpser. The adds seem to "show up" on the screen before they really do so everyone is more than capable of getting in range of them. The earthquake attacks mess everyone up bad on hard.

 

TDLR : But these are only observations made from my guild running normal, hard, and nightmare flash points. Positioning and strategy play a difference in perceived advantages and disadvantages of melee dps and ranged dps as illustrated above.

 

Missing the point. Yes, strats do help, but there is still a disparity. SOA is a ***** with a melee heavy setup, there is no way arguing against that. Also, you are telling me you let your melee get pounced by gharj on nightmare? you must have the best healers in the game.

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Missing the point. Yes, strats do help, but there is still a disparity. SOA is a ***** with a melee heavy setup, there is no way arguing against that. Also, you are telling me you let your melee get pounced by gharj on nightmare? you must have the best healers in the game.

 

The mix of a raid's dps falls to the raid leader, not Bioware. Yes, Gharj's pounce does some nasty damage. Don't underestimate the power of Sith Sorc AoE heals with a sprinkling of Operative heals. It doesn't hurt that our melee isn't afraid to use thier own medpacks on cooldown or actually stand back a moment or two to avoid a pounce or use a defensive cooldown to help mitigate the damage.

 

 

Considering Soa can be moved (and must in phase 3), there's no reason your tank cannot keep him moving like ours does. He's only vulnerable for what? 20 seconds at a time in phase 3? Keep your melee spread out a bit to be nearer the mind traps then haul *** toward him just before your tank positions him to break that shield. Situational awareness of the lightning balls is just as critical to the ranged as it the melee. Thankfully they have a relatively small blast area so your people can move and still be within Soa's hitbox. I don't have a melee character above level 20 yet, but aren't the majority of their abilities instant (or near instant) save something like Force Choke.

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The mix of a raid's dps falls to the raid leader, not Bioware. Yes, Gharj's pounce does some nasty damage. Don't underestimate the power of Sith Sorc AoE heals with a sprinkling of Operative heals. It doesn't hurt that our melee isn't afraid to use thier own medpacks on cooldown or actually stand back a moment or two to avoid a pounce or use a defensive cooldown to help mitigate the damage.

 

 

Considering Soa can be moved (and must in phase 3), there's no reason your tank cannot keep him moving like ours does. He's only vulnerable for what? 20 seconds at a time in phase 3? Keep your melee spread out a bit to be nearer the mind traps then haul *** toward him just before your tank positions him to break that shield. Situational awareness of the lightning balls is just as critical to the ranged as it the melee. Thankfully they have a relatively small blast area so your people can move and still be within Soa's hitbox. I don't have a melee character above level 20 yet, but aren't the majority of their abilities instant (or near instant) save something like Force Choke.

 

Yes, the raid leaders get the classes they think are most beneficial to the raid. Especially if there is alot of wiping. Bioware sets the premises, and those are imbalanced atm.

 

You had me at "dont underestimate the power of sorc AOE healing". Gotta say, thats a good one. No way you can heal through Gharjs nightmare pounces with that. The knockback into the lava is just annoying, damage-wise it is pretty neglectable.

 

Didn't make the thread to discuss strategy though, I am aware that the encounters are not impossible with a melee heavy group, just alot harder. Which i dont think is right. Taht is my point

 

Your thought on SOA is completely flawed btw. Maybe you should play a melee character in that fight to understand what i mean.

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Here's an idea.

 

If you gave the dps a buff that would activate in boss battles if they are within 10 meters of the boss for X amount of time (maybe 6 s) providing them a dps boost as long as they stay there, maybe 1% added damage that could stack with another 6 s.

 

The added boost would go away and start the timer over if they have to move out of range. That would give them a nice boost in damage for being right next to boss and help them overcome the loss when they have to move.

 

No need to add abilites or gap closers, just a hand out for having to run around so damn much.

 

Just thought I would throw this out there.

Edited by hiddenpuudji
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You had me at "dont underestimate the power of sorc AOE healing". Gotta say, thats a good one. No way you can heal through Gharjs nightmare pounces with that. The knockback into the lava is just annoying, damage-wise it is pretty neglectable.

 

Haha seriously? You do know that Revivification is horrendously imbalanced right? Shield melee before every pounce and reviv will comfortably heal up melee.

 

Don't get me wrong: I'd still replace those melee DPS with ranged to make the fight easier.

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Yes, the raid leaders get the classes they think are most beneficial to the raid. Especially if there is alot of wiping. Bioware sets the premises, and those are imbalanced atm.

 

You had me at "dont underestimate the power of sorc AOE healing". Gotta say, thats a good one. No way you can heal through Gharjs nightmare pounces with that. The knockback into the lava is just annoying, damage-wise it is pretty neglectable.

 

Didn't make the thread to discuss strategy though, I am aware that the encounters are not impossible with a melee heavy group, just alot harder. Which i dont think is right. Taht is my point

 

Your thought on SOA is completely flawed btw. Maybe you should play a melee character in that fight to understand what i mean.

 

 

You have a right to your opinions about how horrendous melee have it. I've shared my opinion based solely on my guild's experiences. Some of us have been raiding since EQ 1 days, but many were new the genre from WoW. Melee do have it slighty worse than ranged, but no more or less than past MMOs I've played.

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Haha seriously? You do know that Revivification is horrendously imbalanced right? Shield melee before every pounce and reviv will comfortably heal up melee.

 

Don't get me wrong: I'd still replace those melee DPS with ranged to make the fight easier.

 

I don't play a sorc, but it didn't strike me as "horrendously imbalanced" before. It doesn't matter anyway, since this is only really a sideshow to the argument made.

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To alleviate this i can think of several solutions. I am aware that these bring along other balance issues in PVP. They are only suggestions, and there is more discussion required:

 

- Give melee dps higher DPS which should even out sustained DPS over a fight, because they cant DPS some bosses for the same duration than ranged can.

- Increase their mobility

- Give them some sort of AOE mitigation.

 

wrong, the best solution is always to change the encounter, not the chars or when the encounter dont get these mechanic the changed char would get an unsurmonteable advantage (not counting pvp drama).

just remove most melee-range aoe from bosses, changing those skill to cleaves that force melee in the "right" position (so some boss would get a frontal cleave or a backward cleave and so on, if you known the mechanic you can position yourself in the "safe" zone and do full dps, if you dont you get full damage) but dont punish them to be at melee range and make sure that the aoe skills target only players over a certain range from the boss and act more often than melee range skills.

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There is no easy fix to this. Remember if you make the bosses do ranged aoe (i.e. just affect players far away from the boss) the ranged classes will just move in and fight him near the melee. The range do the same amount of damage close by the boss as far away, so it's no prob for them.

 

If the aoe is close by, the melee lose a massive amount of dps.

 

One solution here is to have all AOE with massive range ... so it affects both range and melee dps, to make it fair.

 

so, you want all fight become tank and spank, with no mechanics, no necessity of positioning and so on?

booring.

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wrong, the best solution is always to change the encounter, not the chars or when the encounter dont get these mechanic the changed char would get an unsurmonteable advantage (not counting pvp drama).

just remove most melee-range aoe from bosses, changing those skill to cleaves that force melee in the "right" position (so some boss would get a frontal cleave or a backward cleave and so on, if you known the mechanic you can position yourself in the "safe" zone and do full dps, if you dont you get full damage) but dont punish them to be at melee range and make sure that the aoe skills target only players over a certain range from the boss and act more often than melee range skills.

 

You are right, but I have said a couple of times in the thread, that the best solution would probably be more thoughtful encounter design. Just isnt in the 1st post.

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so, you want all fight become tank and spank, with no mechanics, no necessity of positioning and so on?

booring.

 

Come now, no one said that. In fact, creating interesting mechanics that do not excessively punish melee DPS wouldn't really be that hard. Leaving a "safe zone" in the damage area, like cleaves instead of bursts, or if the AoE is intended to create a healing complication, make it unlimited range. Making the movement instigation something that pops up under people's feet and can affect melee and ranged equally (though this can be excessively punishing to Melee DPS if they hit a string of RNG bad-luck and suddenly the boss is surrounded by zones of damage).

 

The point is that it's probably pretty easy to focus on mechanics which don't naturally disadvantage DPS players, but because the burst AoE centered on the boss is such a trope of the genre, it keeps worming it's way into every game. Leaving out that one mechanic will not make all fights tank and spank.:rolleyes:

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I would like to point out that alot of encounters may seem melee unfriendly, there are definatly some encounters that are a major pain for me and my Sniper.

 

A very recent experience with the engineer boss in Boarding party HM, he is constantly doing knockbacks all over the place. This is a major ********* on my dps, interupting my long casts, or channeled attacks.

 

Similarly awefull is the last boss in BT (hm), her ranged pull ability is constantly interupting my abilities and casts. Especially awefull on the long-cooldown channels, getting it interupted just as i use it means my energy is gone, cooldown is up, damage is zero. Not to mention the short lasting proc (4.5sec) i lose with the running away, costs me the use of one of my strongest attacks.

 

And there are plenty other bosses and cases where i am moved, or forced to move. And as a caster dps this is a massive strain on my dps output. So the biggest issue with melee is rather that they take more damage and this make them more a risk of dying, great example being boarding party. Its not the lost dps that makes melee a poor choice, but the fact they take much more damage. And as a result are damn near impossible to keep alive.

 

Boarding party in specific needs some work, but the melee problem could be fixed with 1 single change. Fire bomb hits only 1 target and not aoe, done, melee and ranged are both equally adequate.

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