I respect the concession up front. No thanks, that just makes us weak casters. Maybe some targets hitboxes need to be bigger. Also not opposed to longer ranges on certain abilities. And endless ammo, sure that's just good QoL for everyone. I'm skeptical but open to hearing more on this. Idk about grouping but a 'solo friendly' stance could be worth looking at.
The biggest problem I have observed with melee is running away and not being able to melee. The problem with tuning Melee is that when they run away, they do no damage. If you tune them up to do more damage, they become over powered when they don't have to run away. Casters regularly melee for a small increase in DPS output. It's interesting that the objection seems to be that 0 DPS is better than 90% DPS because compromising is off the table. I made the suggestion because I'm not seeing melee classes that far behind in group content which makes me believe the problem is idle time more so than actual output. I am curious as to what you would propose as an alternative to address melee range issues? You said larger hit boxes but I have certainly not observed that to be the solution to the problem unless you want hit boxes with a range of 200.
@Vumad... decap is 99 perc useless, it was nerfed into oblivion like a decade ago. You cannot lump it together with Assassinate and Headshot. BUT STILL, all 3 need to be removed. It is a crap mechanic, gimmicky and way too powerful, or it should only work on lite blues at the max level.
Melee is simply an inefficient combat method. Ranged DPS can have a higher engagement ratio. Melee DPS has to be stronger than range at an inverse relationship to their unengaged time. That is why I proposed a ranged with penalty option, to increase their engagement time. Raids can't be designed to keep melee engaged without making the raids boring tank and spank. Melee can't really ever be comparable to ranged in raids without addressing their time unengaged and that can't be fixed because it is inherent to being melee unless they just get massive DPS boosts to offset the movement time.
Use a little more imagination. You can have high AC mobs vs high resist mobs, or disruptive adds that mana drain or END drain without simply hitting like trucks. Low HP but dangerous mobs that should be quickly focused down. Mobs with big damage shields or spell reflection. All of these exist already in the game to distinguish caster-friendly and melee-friendly mobs.
Add in all the standard xp mobs that used to dispel, charm, mez, and fear. Game got alot easier when basic mobs stopped dispelling.
And unless every one of them are standing on top of each other, the ranged DPS will continue to damage them while the melee runs from mob to mob. What you are suggesting is mechanics that force the raid to balance classes (archtype really). It doesn't fix class imbalances. Again, I'm not saying melee doesn't need some tuning but, on raids, idle time is holding melee back, especially pure melee, by a notable amount. Melee is not that far behind on the parses I have looked at, and sometimes not behind at all, on tank and spank event with comparable gear and aDPS.
Abilities that you envy from other classes should be removed because you can't have them on your class? Think about what your saying man heh
99% of the fight melee are engaged anyways. You want a giant dps penalty for an edge case? I can give great reasons why melee dps should be lower than casters. If you exclude raid bosses, melee can survive agro FAR better than casters. Do I think this should happen? No, but see how it goes both ways? This is just a blatant calls for nerfs to make up for you not being good
I do not envy those abilities. I play a ranger. I even have an Thump audio trigger for headshot procs because the ability is so rewarding. You should go back and read my post. I did not make any suggestions of removing those abilities. I said those abilities make them hugely powerful against a certain mob type but results in them being tuned back on mobs they can not proc these abilities on. What I said is they they should ADD a stance that allows them to do INCEASED dps when not using the procs OR continue to have the procs at the SAME as they are right now. That is NOT a nerf. That is a BUFF. Imagine if RNG chose a stance, precision vs furry, where with precision they headshot and with furry they got a 20% haste. How is that a nerf? Just stay in the precision stance. What DPS penalty are you talking about? What nerf call are you talking about? Maybe you're saying melee should be behind? They are... and in some situations it is too far behind. I wanted to give melee a BUFF in melee throwing DPS and reevaluate their performance. I'll agree they are engaged 99% of the time on some fights, and I see them parse pretty well on those fights, but there are a lot of fights that their engage time seems to be lower than that of casters, though that is harder to measure reliably. I feel their is at least a loose correlation between DPS imbalance in positioning. There are plenty of events where Ranged vs Melee assignments are based on preventing the melee from having to reposition. These choices are almost never based on the ability of ranged DPS to hit the mobs. It's always to keep the melee engaged because there is a fundamental disadvantage to being melee. Since you have decided to move from discussing the issue to attacking my credibility, as I very much anticipated when I said I don't play melee classes, I'll be happy to end further discussion with you on this. Very strange since I am advocating for buffing melee's throwing ability. I'm shocked that you're not supporting, yeah, lets do that easy then and then say yeah, it didn't work, can we talk more about that I will provide the rebuttal this last time however. I don't need to play a ZER / MNK / ROG to watch the MAG / WIZ / NEC / DRU / RNG / BST drop millions of damage into a mob before it gets to the place where the melee start hitting it. It's hard to win a race when you start behind. It's hard to win a race when one person has pavement and the other is on gravel. It's really crazy to me that I can suggest buffing melee's throwing ability to offset issues related to positioning and be the bad guy. Fortunately the Melee I play is a Ranger so I'm much less affected by any of this. I'd be very happy to get a stance ability for my ranger that lets me Either A) proc Headshot or B) get a DPS boost to non-headshot mobs. It seems like a great compromise since RNG can top the parse on headshot mobs but are failing to perform against non-headshot mobs.
Melee being able to do ranged damage but at reduced amount compared to their standard attacks isn't a crazy idea. Also, neither caster or melee should have trouble staying alive so not sure that should factor into anything. Casters have shield of inescapability and added distance if needed. Melee can just use spirit drinkers and keep themselves healed. Overall melee DPS just needs to be similar to necro/mage. There's no reason they shouldn't be at least as good if not better.
You misunderstood and I think you should re-read what I posted. ZER / ROG / MNK are melee classes and should not do the same ranged DPS as *they* do melee. I was not saying that a ZER should do 90% of what a WIZ does. I was saying that ZER should do 10% less damage while throwing as they do while melee. I am fairly confident that no ZER atm can do 90% of their melee damage while throwing. My suggestion should be a BUFF to throwing for these classes based on their current throwing DPS. The use of the term "penalty" is that the ZER ranged DPS should be calculated at a reduced rate as to their own melee DPS. This would not involve any comparison with any other class.
I always thought it was curious that melee classes should be generally competitive with pet classes in terms of DPS, not just while the caster engages from range, but when their pets retain a superior ability to tank.
Melee could be given single-big-hit spell rune proc weapons/abilities so they don't have to run away from boss PBAEs, like pets get. Unless the PBAE includes a raidwide penalty.
