In flashpoints in raids, bosses have aoe knockbacks and cleaves, meaning melees are off worse than ranged classes. Lots of movement involved which also favors ranged classes.

Whats up with that? Why so many melee unfriendly bosses? If progress raids start stacking 4-5 mercenaries u know something is wrong..

Aye, quite a few raid encounters/bosses are melee unfriendly.

Krel Thak (3rd boss) in Ilum

Last boss of boarding party

bulwark in directive 7

In operations.

Bonetrasher in KP

Gharj in EV

Soa in EV

Ann. Droid in EV

Fabricator in KP.

Karagga in KP.

Fights can be made easier by not using melee in those bosses/fights but its certain doable.

I would like to see more bosses who have abilities specifically for people 15+ meters out. It doesn't seem like it would be that difficult, and it would give melee dps something over ranged dps.

The whole "Don't stand in front of or behind the giant dude and dps" isn't very challenging to me as a ranged DPS.

While I'm sitting cool and free out of the boss abilities, my poor melee dps buddies get knocked around, stomped, DOT'ed.

I've seen groups deny people spots because they want one melee dps or no melee dps at all. There's a huge advantage for ranged DPS in any fight. I can't think of one boss fight where melee dps has an advantage over ranged due to their positions.

I'm a ranged DPS and I want to be challenged, too!

It's not just this game that hates melees, a lot of games are designed like this. Having a ranged attack is simply a huge advantage because you're positioning is about a jillion times better.

And it's not like it'd be hard to challenge ranged deeps in SWTOR, there are tons of mechanics. Grapples are one that more bosses should be using. I think I've seen ONE boss who grappled range characters into melee.

Why can't enemy force users pull in characters >10 meters or something? How about a boss fight where every so often the boss casts a bubble to protect himself from fall debris and unless you get within his small bubble, you risk taking a ton of AOE damage?

Something. Anything.

I would like to see more bosses who have abilities specifically for people 15+ meters out. It doesn't seem like it would be that difficult, and it would give melee dps something over ranged dps.

 

The whole "Don't stand in front of or behind the giant dude and dps" isn't very challenging to me as a ranged DPS.

 

While I'm sitting cool and free out of the boss abilities, my poor melee dps buddies get knocked around, stomped, DOT'ed.

 

I've seen groups deny people spots because they want one melee dps or no melee dps at all. There's a huge advantage for ranged DPS in any fight. I can't think of one boss fight where melee dps has an advantage over ranged due to their positions.

 

I'm a ranged DPS and I want to be challenged, too!

 

It's not just this game that hates melees, a lot of games are designed like this. Having a ranged attack is simply a huge advantage because you're positioning is about a jillion times better.

 

And it's not like it'd be hard to challenge ranged deeps in SWTOR, there are tons of mechanics. Grapples are one that more bosses should be using. I think I've seen ONE boss who grappled range characters into melee.

 

Why can't enemy force users pull in characters >10 meters or something? How about a boss fight where every so often the boss casts a bubble to protect himself from fall debris and unless you get within his small bubble, you risk taking a ton of AOE damage?

 

Something. Anything.

This is the attitude Blizzard lacks that Bioware can capitalize on. Blizzard started the whole "We love ranged DPS ZOMG BIG HUGE DONGING BO NER RAWR!!!!" trend. Bioware should go out of their way to break it, especially in a game that's so range heavy. Melee DPS should be sought after. They should be valuable. They shouldn't get left in the sh*tter like they are in WoW. Why does every boss have a knock back and knock over that ONLY affects characters within 10 meters of them? Are you stupid, Bioware? Do you see what this does to your game and its community? Even melee tanks get the short end of the stick. What's harder, tanking a boss at 15+ meters and avoiding most abilities or being in the meat at 4 meters and getting thrown back and forth like a rag doll? Do you really want your game to turn into "The Sith Sorcerers Online... oh yea, and a few Snipers and Tracer Missile Spammers too"? Is that your big golden dream? If not then you need to wake up and create mechanics that work to the melee characters BENEFIFIT, and not to screw them over entirely.

This is the attitude Blizzard lacks that Bioware can capitalize on. Blizzard started the whole "We love ranged DPS ZOMG BIG HUGE DONGING BO NER RAWR!!!!" trend. Bioware should go out of their way to break it, especially in a game that's so range heavy. Melee DPS should be sought after. They should be valuable. They shouldn't get left in the sh*tter like they are in WoW. Why does every boss have a knock back and knock over that ONLY affects characters within 10 meters of them? Are you stupid, Bioware? Do you see what this does to your game and its community? Even melee tanks get the short end of the stick. What's harder, tanking a boss at 15+ meters and avoiding most abilities or being in the meat at 4 meters and getting thrown back and forth like a rag doll? Do you really want your game to turn into "The Sith Sorcerers Online... oh yea, and a few Snipers and Tracer Missile Spammers too"? Is that your big golden dream? If not then you need to wake up and create mechanics that work to the melee characters BENEFIFIT, and not to screw them over entirely.

I completely agree - they need to get away this perceived mindset which appears to be: "in order to make more players play one of our less-hyped classes let's make the other more iconic class utter sh*t and therefore less popular thereby fixing any balance issues".

They probably don't think like that (how would I know) but it certainly comes across that way.

A damage (or other kind) of buff based on distance from the boss would do a lot to level the field without favoring specific classes.

If it was ranged based then the ranged classes would just stack up on the boss along with melee.

Aye, quite a few raid encounters/bosses are melee unfriendly.

 

Krel Thak (3rd boss) in Ilum

Last boss of boarding party

bulwark in directive 7

 

In operations.

 

Bonetrasher in KP

Gharj in EV

Soa in EV

Ann. Droid in EV

Fabricator in KP.

Karagga in KP.

 

Fights can be made easier by not using melee in those bosses/fights but its certain doable.

As a PT Tank alot of my abilities are 4-10 m away, which is melee range

Bonetrasher in KP: You get up his ***, he turns you run at his right leg..No issue

Gharj in EV:Tank has him turned away=no cleave, when he jumps time it you take no damage, I didn believe it till we tried it

Soa in EV: which phase? the one where he stands in the middle of the room and you burn him down and have ranged kill the Mindtraps?

Ann. Droid in EV: tank has him turned away, again..no issue

Fabricator in KP: Melee stays on the boss, ranged kills stun bots, then ranged clickers can burn him from the platforms and toss dps on the stun droids as they run back.

Karagga in KP: if your tank cant keep it so your melee can get in there he is bad, tanked this last night with Assassin, Marauder and Operative(backstabs), you kite him along the ouskirts of the room and leave the center clear..

I played a Rogue in WoW; My goal was to keep myself alive, not pull aggro and to dps the hell out of things. Is being melee easy? No, but being bad melee is alot easier than being good melee; properly prepared(Stims, Adrenals, Med packs) makes a huge difference.

Before listing bosses and saying they are tough on melee, ask yourself"Is the melee making more tough on themselves?"

If it was ranged based then the ranged classes would just stack up on the boss along with melee.

That's kind of the point. If you're in melee range you're subject to all of the high damage and CC that comes from that and you register higher in terms of threat (1.3 multiplier instead of 1.1). If a Merc is willing to try and DPS from melee range then they get the buff as well as all of the pita elements. This would also give a bit back to the melee Operatives that got a nerf to some of their damage.

Many bosses do have Ranged specific mechanics that have to be watched for. Some of the ones you mentioned actually.

Annihilator droid's huge missile explosion only targets a ranged character.

Soa in the first Phase drops those huge lightning pools, he also rarely throws the tank into the air, it's usually a ranged DPS. Same with the mind traps.

Jarg and Sorno have that spin and pull everyone in manuever which really messes with ranged classes and healers. Sorno also does his missile from the sky purple circle nonsense.

These are just examples off the top of my head, I think they're doing a decent job balancing the avoidance time for both melee and ranged.

Trash fights are another story, every trash mob has a stun or knock down and I spend more time on my back as a tank in some fights than I do standing up.