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When do you want MORE melee players in raid?
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Post by
skribs
I've been playing for a while as a raider, primarily a healer (druid, shaman, pally) but every so often as an off-tank/melee hybrid (DK) or a ranged (hunter). After going through the majority of the content in WotLK and about half of the content in TBC, I'm starting to wonder which fights melee are actually strong on (besides Lady Deathwhisper which requires physical damage dealers). The way I see it, ranged is almost always better (e.g. easier to switch to adds, already out of whirlwinds or novas) or equal, on what fights do melee shine?
Reason I ask this is because I'm trying to decide what I want to do in Cataclysm. I've narrowed it down to DPS, and while I think my best DPS class is the DK, I almost always see raids needing more ranged DPS. So I was trying to see if there really is a reason to bring some melee to a raid. I know there's probably a reason, but I'm just trying to figure out what it is.
Post by
219211
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Post by
skribs
Ok, let me rephrase the question, because I dont think I asked it very clearly. Under what conditions does a fight favor melee over ranged (sort of a generality, not specific fights)?
E.g. Ranged favors melee in the following conditions:
DPS will be required to switch to targets which may/will be some distance from the original target, resulting in a DPS loss for melee while they run to attack new target.
Boss uses an AoE, such as a whirlwind or nova, resulting in melee DPS loss due to having to avoid AoE.
Boss uses a cleave, meaning ranged can start rotations earlier as they are out of cleave range anyway, whereas melee have to wait for boss to get positioned (while DPS shouldn't be attacking until the tank has it, good tanks have enough to hold threat on the first few ticks of dots which get placed up).
While those conditions are not specific to any fight, they are fight-specific in that other bosses do not meet those conditions. So what are the conditions that melee > ranged?
Post by
292580
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Post by
pezz
Shadow priests and survival hunters, and another class I can't remember have replenishment. (Back in the good old days it was just the three, but I digress.)
Battle Shout doesn't stack with BoM.
I don't think FFF stacks with FF, and anyway the boomkin one is better with the bonus spell hit.
HoW doesn't stack with SoE totem, and as I recall there aren't any earth totems Ele shamans really benefit from, so they'd have no reason not to put it down.
Windfury totem is not (I believe) offered by any other class, but if you managed to make a raid without melee dps it would only be tps boost for tanks. A pretty nice tps boost though, I'll grant you, but tank threat on bosses is very rarely a problem.
TotT I'll grant you; you need a rogue for that.
For the most part, though, there aren't many buffs that melee dps uniquely bring to a raid, and the few there are typically only benefit melee dps to begin with. If you were trying to make a ranged dps-only raid, then, most of those buffs wouldn't matter.
As for your Anub and Jer examples, melee and ranged both have aoe options, and both of them find their single target dps suffers (most of the time) when using those options.
To be honest, I'm of the opinion that melee dps are overall at a slight disadvantage in WoW PvE. Not anything horrible in need of immediate, game breaking fixes (I feel like I pull my weight in groups from 5 to 25 members on my ret paladin), but it's hard to think of many situtations where there are real, tangible positives to bringing melee dps over ranged dps, especially when you factor in the intrinsic drawbacks of being melee versus ranged.
That said, when I'm making pugs, I don't worry too much about avoiding melee dps where possible, I just try to have roughly equal numbers of ranged and melee dps. Good melee dps can do their job by contributing to the raid and doing dps which is competitive with ranged dps.
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363562
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200946
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Post by
skribs
Replenishment can come from frost mages or destruction warlocks as well. Unless they simply haven't updated the tooltip, I think the mage one may be better too.
TotT can be handled by hunters, rogues simply add to it.
WF can be offered by frost DKs, and it's better if done by an enhance shammy than an ele/resto (16% haste vs. 20% haste talented). But as mentioned, this is a melee buff, so removing all melee would make it unnecessary anyway.
However, I can see an ele/resto shaman putting down stoneskin totem. The armor DOES stack with GotW and with Dev Aura.
Depending on class, single DPS usually doesn't suffer by using the AoE method. Rogue's and feral kitties are unique here, but enhance shammies can make use of magma/FN/CL, warriors already use WW and cleave adds a bit, pallies already use conc and DS on single target anyway. However, those classes also typically do less DPS on single target fights as a whole, so I guess you are right except they made the choice at class selection instead of in combat (for example, my pally friend typically out-DPSes a rogue, but on fights with no adds she will out-DPS him as her single target is better).
To be honest, I'm of the opinion that melee dps are overall at a slight disadvantage in WoW PvE. Not anything horrible in need of immediate, game breaking fixes (I feel like I pull my weight in groups from 5 to 25 members on my ret paladin), but it's hard to think of many situtations where there are real, tangible positives to bringing melee dps over ranged dps, especially when you factor in the intrinsic drawbacks of being melee versus ranged.
I agree, and that's why I made this post. I'm trying to figure out what I should play on, and even though I'm great on the DK - I think ranged offers more options for positioning and more utility in terms of less time running away from aoe or toward adds. Even on Lady, if you've got a lot of hunters you can do a melee-free run there, too.
Warriors bring Sunder Armor.
That is all.
1) Warriors can be tanks, precluding the need for melee to place sunder armor.
2) If you have no melee, why do you need sunder armor?
3) Boomkins can place a sunder effect as well.
Post by
341986
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Post by
skumbananer
Shade of arahn back in ole karazhan. maybe more warrior friendly than melee friendly though. For some reason i could outdps everyone else (even rogues) except other warriors even in prot specc (prot specced in fury gear)
Post by
chase123
Roll a Red Mage, they can do both melee and range dps.
Post by
Badguy
Roll a Red Mage, they can do both melee and range dps.
They can tank too.
Post by
Sabin
I'd say the basic thing about melee dps is survivability. The armor and such help out with the whirlwind/cleave etc.
Post by
skribs
I'd say the basic thing about melee dps is survivability. The armor and such help out with the whirlwind/cleave etc.
The DPSing from out of WW range trumps any extra armor. Ele shamans and boomkins also have more armor than rogues, feral kitties, or enhance shamans.
Post by
Bonurmum
Roll a Red Mage, they can do both melee and range dps.
Psh, they're only good for refresh.
Get a bard instead, they can chain-pull for some awesome xp chains and bring uber buffs for everyone.
wait what MMO forum is this?
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146856
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365547
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104412
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219211
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Post by
Syrenya
Melees have advantage on following fights:
1) Fights with lots of movement.
2) Fights when adds (or other things to switch to) are near to boss (most of melees have some kind of cleave).
3) Fights with heavy aoe damage in case healers are slacking (melees simply have more hp to survive that).
1)Most movement fights still favor range as usually they dont have to move much/at all.
2)I can't think of a range that doesn't have a big aoe(Blizzard,Volley,Mind Sear,Rain of Fire,etc)
3)True most plate dps have tons of health but rogues and enhance sham don't have tons of health either
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