Melee, who designed this?

I'm not claiming that melee is too hard to play or anything, but it is pointlessly complex.

Like dragoons and positioning. On paper, great idea, it adds a lot of interest to the class... Until the mob turns, or a pool of death appears at it's back or side. Our ability to play at our best depends on the tank's ability to keep the mob not just in one place, facing one direction.

And then we have to get out of range of A LOT of stuff. But don't sprint, you're out of TP if you do. Yet casters, who rarely have to run like crazy out of melee range, are free to sprint any time they want with no negative effect to their dps.

Whoever designed this got it a little backwards. You want to punish melee less, and move ranged more. Keep melee constantly on that do it right or die idea, but let us actually play the game. We spend more time running away and trying to position ourselves with a moving mob or tank than we do actually killing the thing.

Casters can't move during a spell cast or else it is canceled...

Encounters in which an enemy's backside is unreachable for positional attacks.......

or those occasional floor effects that stack in a line....making even sprinting through it to avoid damage fail.......


Those are the situations that drive ME mad. I understand that a lot of these annoyances are just random but its still bad design. Overall though, I enjoy avoiding aoe, managing skill chains, etc. as a melee. Its engaging.

I've never really found it to be an issue as a DRG. Of all the moves they employ in their skillchain, only TWO of them require positions (HT and ID). The rest can be used from any position.

My beef with positionals is that it's sometimes hard to tell which direction the mob is facing. Yes, yes, I know, you can either just use visuals, or go by the big target circle under them showing which direction the mob is facing. But throw half a dozen mobs on top of each other, and add in AoE effects, and good luck.
That's the biggest annoyance for me, really.

Lol, that is part of the beauty of playing melee, the best melee know when the boss is going to turn etc, so they can work around it. It's not just about getting ur rotation down, you need to get the rotation of the mobs down too so you can be prepared to work around their turns or aoe moves.

A good tank that plays with melee will know the more steady he can keep the boss, the better it is for his team mates.

Anyway, they can't have got it that wrong when melee are still the strongest single target in the game. Why should melee be allowed to move faster without penalty? They can move free without penalty as it is. That's the difference between them and caster.

Caster can move fast without penalty, but the movement itself is penalty...

I like that melee have these issues to work around. Thing like these are the difference between good melee and great melee.

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Originally Posted by rockint

I'm not claiming that melee is too hard to play or anything, but it is pointlessly complex...

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As a full time melee player that doesn't play anything else (in all MMO's I've played) I rather enjoy how they've designed the game for the most part. While it's nice to have the occasional training dummy style boss that you get to just wreck as melee I rather like more complex fights that are much more involved. Also in terms of movement in the encounters, most of the end game fights require the ranged to move quite a bit as well. Sure, it's frustrating when the mechanics don't go your way, but rest assured that the same thing happens to other classes as well.

Well we should have to move. Just stand there and beat on the boss is boring. But it seems like we spend more time moving, espcially out of melee range, than anything else.

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Originally Posted by rockint

Well we should have to move. Just stand there and beat on the boss is boring. But it seems like we spend more time moving, espcially out of melee range, than anything else.

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I like moving while fighting. Maintaining high uptime while dodging mechanics is pretty fun for the most part in this game. If you're having trouble keeping high uptime on majority of the bosses it sounds like you need to rethink your approach to the fight a bit. What kind of content are you currently doing?

I've always played melee in these games. The idea of having to dodge everything while trying to keep my dps uptime as high as possible is nothing new.

My complaint is that's ALL we do. We don't make a single hard decision. We don't have to choose between different abilities to end our combo. Just do one of our 3 3-4 button combos, and time a few cooldowns. All we do is attack the boss, pray our tank doesn't have ADD, and dodge pink circles.

Melee in this game just doesn't play like melee. It seems like SE is trying to reinvent the wheel when there was nothing that really needed to be changed, just improved.

I'm just putting my opinion out there. It's not too challenging, it's just annoying to me. So far, arcanist seems way more fun. Probably going to stick to that. Just to me, melee in this game is just a bunch of AOE dodging (that quickly becomes habit) rather than putting actual challenges in.

One man's annoyance is another man's game mechanic =)

Personally, I LOVE that this game utilizes positioning. Otherwise we'd all just be standing there whacking away as numbers scroll never really moving (EVERQUEST anyone?)

I love being a Dragoon simply because you have to be paying attention to your postioning, moving around all the time in order to get your full amount of damage during your combos. Mobs are tough but can be managed with doom spike as long as you are paying attention to where you are to make sure you hit the most enemies with it. Yes it drains TP but the more often you use it you start to learn how to manage your TP and not run out completely. I have always hated to get to a dungeon and people leave because there is a dragoon in the party and not 2 ranged DPS. I know all my fellow dragoons have had this happen before especially with brayflox hard mode when we all need myths and sols. Going for my Novus now.
I love a challenge though.

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Originally Posted by Amnesia

Casters can't move during a spell cast or else it is canceled...

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There's even more to this than some people think. I've played primarily ranged classes until more recently starting leveling Monk. Played a Bard then Blackmage. One of the differences I've noticed with the monk is because you're constantly moving, you're already moving when AOEs and Plumes start coming out. Makes it a tad easier to dodge. However.. I will say this.. the dragoon placement from what I remember wasn't quite as fluid as a monk. So I can understand where the OP is coming from.

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Originally Posted by Necaust

Encounters in which an enemy's backside is unreachable for positional attacks.......

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isn't there actually only one boss in the game where you can not attack from back ? and that is the wall in amdapor (you can still attack its side ...) ?

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Originally Posted by Geobryn

isn't there actually only one boss in the game where you can not attack from back ? and that is the wall in amdapor (you can still attack its side ...) ?

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Pretty sure the Demon Wall is the only one.
Leviathan and the Kraken both count the flank as the rear.

Probably it is matter of individual preference - for me dragoon is easiest to play and most versatile class and OP probably just need to play it more to get used to it or switch to another job that he likes more.
So from me - huge thank you to people who designed dragoon.

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Originally Posted by Ricdeau

I like moving while fighting. Maintaining high uptime while dodging mechanics is pretty fun for the most part in this game. If you're having trouble keeping high uptime on majority of the bosses it sounds like you need to rethink your approach to the fight a bit. What kind of content are you currently doing?

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I also like playing DRG and MNK, but I have to agree that some fights are annoying, especially with MNK.

1. Stuff like CT/ST when 3+ tanks try to be main tank, with the result that the boss keeps turning around in a way you can't predict.
2. Mechanics which force you to get away from the mob for a longer time. Like Titan jumps, Behemoth Meteor, Amon "Iceblockthingy" (forgot name), Leviathan dashes, Ifrit dashes, Xande Meteor phase changes, Garuda jumps, Diabolos door-memory, Ifrit EX Eruptions, Twintania Liquid Hell,...
3. Mob positioning when fighting multiple mobs with big hitboxes which bump eachother around when they get too close, constantly turning them around.

While 1. and 3. are just a bit annoying because you can lose some of your dmg potential, 2. is what's driving me nuts.
It doesn't feel like a fight against a boss, it feels like a fight to get greased lightning buff.
Perfect Balance is on a rather long cooldown, so you can't use it all the time.
I just hate when GL drops and there is nothing I can do to prevent that from happening.

WAR can use Vengeance or Berserk to reset Wrath timer which is 30s.
DRG Heavy Thrust buff lasts for 20s and is just 1GC.
BLM just have to cast a Fire III which is 1 GC.

And MNK got 12s GL buff without a way to increase the duration.
Just refreshing the buff requires 3 GC, while building it requires 9 GC.
I just don't think it's fair compared to other classes.

I'd like a way to either gain GL stacks faster (reduced Perfect Balance cooldown), increase its duration, or give us some way to reset the timer (through Shoulder Tackle, Internal Release or such).

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Originally Posted by Kyana

I'd like a way to either gain GL stacks faster (reduced Perfect Balance cooldown), increase its duration, or give us some way to reset the timer (through Shoulder Tackle, Internal Release or such).

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MNKs are balanced around losing Greased Lightning. Otherwise we would completely destroy everyone else on dps, like we do when we don't have to lose it (T8 for example).

Lol they cant please everyone and every class out there but hey if it works, why fix it? trust me, as a BLM I do 60% running and 40% of actual fighting but I don’t complain cuz my BLM is so strong that when I do fight, it does so much damge that it makes up for the running time, I love being a BLM :)

When I first started the game, the positioning needed annoyed me a bit, but I got used to it. I'm so used it that when I play a ranged class, I find it boring.

Each class has advantages and disadvantages on different fights and that is a great concept in this game imo. Imagine the how OP drg would be if we would get 100% uptime on bosses and could just stand and spam the rotation... would make the class utterly dull. Just need to get used to it and swear it out when the boss turns just at the wrong moment - it's all part of the deal.