Another thing about melees in Ambuscade is the spike damage which is another frustration I have with "Melee vs Magic" balancing... In the Dragon Ambuscade, the perpetual spike damage made it difficult for healers to keep up with healing if there was more than one melee DD, especially if they were dual wielders like dancer or thief.
The spike damage for the Demon is worse though... The Demon/Taurus fight was relatively easy, and I was excited because it was something I could use my Dancer for!... Until...the dread spikes... I have a lot of multi-hit with my Dancer, and those dread spikes were very potent (250+ damage per hit). Every few runs, there would be the moment where I happen to proc 5 or 6 hits in an auto-attack round immediately after the Demon cast Dread spikes, and end up killing myself instantly without even getting a chance to turn around.
So we can add damage spikes to the growing list of imbalances between Melee and Magic DD... Why are there so many end-game NMs that have potent Damage Spike effects when there are virtually no similarly potent Spell Reflect effects to pose a similar threat to mages?
And thank you for mentioning Status Effects!... I could probably make an entire thread about how NM status effects disproportionately impact Melees, but I just want to mention the glaring one...
Amnesia: Why is there still no medicine or spell that can remove Amnesia, while Silence can be removed with Silena and Echo Drops? In the FF series, Mallets and Esunas could cure Amnesia. So please give us Mallets so I can bop my Dancer with them when she needs it!! It's only fair. The mages can keep their cough syrup.