Meleewalker to Meleetrail

Are we transitioning from Meleewalker straight into Meleetrail?
Another xpac of ranged being second class citizens?
Too early to tell but I'm placing my bets on it.

Sigh, don't worry us healers have the bench already warmed up

The game's unwillingness to tune mobility and utility to their actual worth and instead just destroying the job's damage is one of my least favorite things about this game.

I'm still wrapping my head around them reworking SMN the way they did when they knew they were going to make it terrible lol

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Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

Sigh, don't worry us healers have the bench already warmed up

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Machinist's been there for awhile.

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Originally Posted by Lanvaldear

Are we transitioning from Meleewalker straight into Meleetrail?
Another xpac of ranged being second class citizens?
Too early to tell but I'm placing my bets on it.

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It's not too early. Dawntrail is continuing most of the trends Endwalker created. Highly reactive boss design, extremely tight mechanics that don't play nicely with ping (especially orb mechanics...) that occasionally fire out of order. And, oh yeah, the devs giving everyone with a cast bar the middle finger.

It seems they want mDPS to be stronger than rDPS and cDPS, and they're designing fights that will give even Samurais and Reapers pause. So, yeah, meleetrail. Screw casters and cater to melee, the expansion, version 2.0.

You're getting mixed up with Pictotrail. Don't worry, you definitely still have options available to you if you're only able to keep up with sub-30 APM caster gameplay with scheduled coffee breaks between button inputs. Yoshi-p was always going to look out for his main role.

I don't think so. the new raid fights are complete ASS as a melee. Can barely hit the things.

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Originally Posted by Lanvaldear

Are we transitioning from Meleewalker straight into Meleetrail?
Another xpac of ranged being second class citizens?
Too early to tell but I'm placing my bets on it.

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Not too early, even if some bosses don't allow for full melee uptime, it'll only make melee dps go down to ranged dps level while still being king in all other bosses.
And they removed even more positionals because wall bosses and true north was not enough, so melee is even easier than before.

I love ranged complaining about melees when they got it way easier in every single aspect in this game

What would it take for melees to actually shut up about rphys being "easier" than melee for once? Harder rotations (because ohboy, melee rotations are hard amaright)? Even if you make it galaxybrain people would still say rphys players are second rate players. Or maybe cast times so there is only casters and melees left? What do you want us to be?

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Originally Posted by Valence

What would it take for melees to actually shut up about rphys being "easier" than melee for once? Harder rotations (because ohboy, melee rotations are hard amaright)? Even if you make it galaxybrain people would still say rphys players are second rate players. Or maybe cast times so there is only casters and melees left? What do you want us to be?

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Don't worry, they do this with casters too. We have "mobility tools" so 100% uptime is magically handed to us for free, in their minds. If and when they have to disengage for 1 GCD though, it becomes very hard and complicated to use their mobility tools, maybe once or twice per fight.

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Originally Posted by Thyrand

I love ranged complaining about melees when they got it way easier in every single aspect in this game

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This guy plays SAM so a difficult class right? I mean it's obviously harder than let's say... BRD or BLM right?

It won't change as long as melee players believe they are god's gift to the world and that they are sweating so hard in a game with as low of a skill ceiling as an MMO.

It obviously sucks to play RDM and SMN knowing that your damage is going to be severely gimped when you are just trying to play your favorite class. But hey at least you can sometimes be in the mood to play PCT/BLM and do high damage if you want in savage.

If you're playing physical ranged you have no options when it comes to having the chance to carry the DPS load for your group or party finder if you are a good player.

Melee really believe that their rotations are hard because they have to be within a few yalms of the boss to execute them...even though that is where literally everyone in the party sits for the majority of the fight.

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Originally Posted by Aurora428

The game's unwillingness to tune mobility and utility to their actual worth and instead just destroying the job's damage is one of my least favorite things about this game.

I'm still wrapping my head around them reworking SMN the way they did when they knew they were going to make it terrible lol

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Hey it could be worse. Literally what use does Black Mage have right now?

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Originally Posted by CrystalAurora

It obviously sucks to play RDM and SMN knowing that your damage is going to be severely gimped when you are just trying to play your favorite class. But hey at least you can sometimes be in the mood to play PCT/BLM and do high damage if you want in savage.

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Picto maybe. Black Mage is *barely* above the other casters in damage right now. It's base damage is worse than Picto's, and it has no utility--and it's actually hard to play. Until SE fixes this, Black Mages won't be on the bench, they'll BE the bench.

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Originally Posted by Basteala

Picto maybe. Black Mage is *barely* above the other casters in damage right now. It's base damage is worse than Picto's, and it has no utility--and it's actually hard to play. Until SE fixes this, Black Mages won't be on the bench, they'll BE the bench.

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I'm more so referring to when the savage patch drops since they have shown that they are always willing to give BLM massive buffs whenever its needs it.

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Originally Posted by CrystalAurora

I'm more so referring to when the savage patch drops since they have shown that they are always willing to give BLM massive buffs whenever its needs it.

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Yeah, BLM never stays bad. It will get the buffs its due/deserves and then some.
Poor MCH over here with no movement utility, no damage buffs, no party support (unless you count dismantle) and consecutively the bottom 3 DPS in the game since HW. It hasn't been good since it was a gunbard.

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Originally Posted by CrystalAurora

I'm more so referring to when the savage patch drops since they have shown that they are always willing to give BLM massive buffs whenever its needs it.

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Fingers crossed because it's frustrating. At least SMN and RDM bring raises to the party.

That said, the "ranged" tax is kinda nonsense.

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Originally Posted by CrystalAurora

I'm more so referring to when the savage patch drops since they have shown that they are always willing to give BLM massive buffs whenever its needs it.

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This is some EW-revisionism. BLM suffered through a lot of ShB and SB. It became good on either expac only in patch in .4, although BLM was decent in 5.0 before Savage dropped.

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Originally Posted by Lanvaldear

Are we transitioning from Meleewalker straight into Meleetrail?
Another xpac of ranged being second class citizens?
Too early to tell but I'm placing my bets on it.

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The new bosses actually pose some challenge to melee dps. Ofc, this comes with the addendum they challenge casters basically as much, if not more... (not you SMN, you don't count).
Balance is still completely off, but it's dishonest to say the new NM raids don't make melees work quite hard for uptime (I even think perfect uptime might be impossible on some mechanical combinations, though they're only dropping two or three gcds in the whole fight at worst).

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Originally Posted by Lyth

You're getting mixed up with Pictotrail. Don't worry, you definitely still have options available to you if you're only able to keep up with sub-30 APM caster gameplay with scheduled coffee breaks between button inputs. Yoshi-p was always going to look out for his main role.

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I'm not going to pretend any job in XIV is particularly challenging, but it's funny seeing this take aimed at Pictomancer, which is tied with Black Mage for the highest gap between each percentile- usually a sign that a job has a low floor, a high ceiling or, in the case of these two jobs, both. For the playerbase at large, it seems it's about as hard as any melee at the very least.

There's been a couple of bosses with smaller hitboxes, hoping this trend continues. As a melee I actually like the challenge of you know... Staying in melee range. Why give all bosses such absurdly huge hitboxes, at that point I may as well be a ranged.
Melee optimisation of uptime is what makes the role fun, learning the fight and learning how much damage I can possibly get in it is fun.

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Originally Posted by Valence

What would it take for melees to actually shut up about rphys being "easier" than melee for once? Harder rotations (because ohboy, melee rotations are hard amaright)? Even if you make it galaxybrain people would still say rphys players are second rate players. Or maybe cast times so there is only casters and melees left? What do you want us to be?

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At this point they should just do what most old MMOs do with the whole DPS job situation. Do not give a care about the aspect of them be Melee, Range, and Mages. Just make them all do BIG damage and do not let the whole Mobility aspect of a job affect them.

If players want the enjoyment of big DPS with melee range encounters then let it them just play Melee DPS, if they want Mage Experience with cast time to do BIG DPS then let them be mages, and if they want to do big DPS equal to Melee and Mages without the risk of Melee and Mage's cast time then let them play Physical Range DPS.

This is how it mostly was in older MMOs and why Gun Jobs (or any mobile DPS jobs sometimes) in those that introduce them tend to be absurdly overpowered and it is just mostly player choosing melee, mages, or range as a preference.

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Originally Posted by CrystalAurora

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This subforum is filled with players either asking for simplifications on melee jobs that they don't play (and in some cases haven't even unlocked), demanding the removal of positionals, or complaining that they don't do more damage than melee while playing at half the APM while at range.

Melee mains in here mostly just want to preserve the gameplay and skill optimization that currently exist on their chosen jobs so that they can keep fights engaging even after a clear. You can also advocate for the more engaging gameplay on your preferred job as well, but don't drag others down by trying to remove optimization from other players' jobs. It's genuinely detrimental to the state of the game.

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Originally Posted by Galvuu

This is some EW-revisionism. BLM suffered through a lot of ShB and SB. It became good on either expac only in patch in .4, although BLM was decent in 5.0 before Savage dropped.

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Ironically enough you're revising history because BLM was a top tier DPS job the entirety of Shadowbringers, going neck and neck with SMN (Pre nerf) and never dropping out of the top 3.
You have to go back to pre Alphascape in Stormblood to find a time in which the job wasn't getting buffed for an extended period of time during a time in which it was struggling.

Even when it was "Weak" Last expansion it was just weak in that it wasn't a top 2 DPS job... It was just below some of the melee while being on par or above a couple of them without the gap ever being massive between it and the top dps job.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

This subforum is filled with players either asking for simplifications on melee jobs that they don't play (and in some cases haven't even unlocked), demanding the removal of positionals, or complaining that they don't do more damage than melee while playing at half the APM while at range.

Melee mains in here mostly just want to preserve the gameplay and skill optimization that currently exist on their chosen jobs so that they can keep fights engaging even after a clear. You can also advocate for the more engaging gameplay on your preferred job as well, but don't drag others down by trying to remove optimization from other players' jobs. It's genuinely detrimental to the state of the game.

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I am a supporter of preserving optimization and would never try to remove optimization from the game. Stormblood will always be the perfect balance to me when it comes to not being overly difficult that drives away the players that they want to preserve while still having fun jobs for the more hardcore players.

Its also mainly not about strictly doing more, its about the fact that a melee vastly underperforming can still bring more total Rdps than a SMN, RDM or physical ranged at times in recent years.

The APM thing however is just not entirely true unless you're talking about casters who may not have high APM but have to pre plan their positioning more than the other 2 DPS roles. I am quite sure however that BRD and MCH have higher APM than every job in the game other than NIN and VPR.

Higher APM= more difficult is surely an interesting opinion when BRD and MCH are some of the busiest jobs in the game lol

Are we gonna get someone else meleesplaining why melee are totally hard and complex compared to any other role?

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Originally Posted by CrystalAurora

Ironically enough you're revising history because BLM was a top tier DPS job the entirety of Shadowbringers, going neck and neck with SMN (Pre nerf) and never dropping out of the top 3.
You have to go back to pre Alphascape in Stormblood to find a time in which the job wasn't getting buffed for an extended period of time during a time in which it was struggling.

Even when it was "Weak" Last expansion it was just weak in that it wasn't a top 2 DPS job... It was just below some of the melee while being on par or above a couple of them without the gap ever being massive between it and the top dps job.

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SMN was arguably the most powerful dps job in the history of the game in patches 5.2 and 5.3. It had the highest rdps- beating BLM consistently on all percentiles, if you check the data for Eden's Verse- with the added bonus of a rez and somewhat superior mobility compared to BLM at the time. Every top 10 fastest kill on any boss in Verse except 3 had a SMN in it (so 3 out of 40), the strongest presence out of any dps job. Of those that had a SMN, roughly 1/3 ran double caster, the rest was standard double melee.
In Gate, you have a 6-4 split between SMN and BLM, which seems to show they were comparable, but both were beneath melee during 5.05 through 5.1 (though technically roughly balanced against each other, even though SMN had a small rdps lead compared to BLM). Since everything BLM brings is damage, the moment another caster overtakes it or even matches it, it's arguably in a rough spot.

So, from 5.05 to 5.4, BLM was either more or less tied with SMN in terms of rdps, or consistently behind it, with SMN having some added utility and slightly better mobility. I don't know how this is congruent with "BLM gets massive buffs when it needs them", since those buffs usually only arrive during the last floors of the entire expansion. Fwiw, the situation in SB was mostly similar- although the difference is that SMN and BLM synergized quite well back then, so when BLM got its buffs in 4.4, double caster could actually compete with double melee, and both comps had equal presence in the fastest kills (in fact, it was a roughly three-way split between double melee, double caster and triple melee).

Not that this aside matters for the topic, which I don't exactly agree to begin with. It's definitely shaping up to be a tier where melee uptime isn't free in the slightest.

Honestly, I don't think the gap between melee and ranged/caster DPS should be that significant, but I don't think melee are as favored in Dawntrail as they were in Endwalker.

The hitboxes have been drastically reduced, and some mechanics are quite annoying for melee, so they have much more potential to lose uptime than before.
We need to wait for the stats from the savage fights to really be sure of how melee compare to ranged jobs. A few dungeons and 2 extremes are not enough to judge.

In a way, melee should have more DPS than ranged DPS, but yes, the gap should be slightly reduced.

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Originally Posted by remiff

Honestly, I don't think the gap between melee and ranged/caster DPS should be that significant, but I don't think melee are as favored in Dawntrail as they were in Endwalker.

The hitboxes have been drastically reduced, and some mechanics are quite annoying for melee, so they have much more potential to lose uptime than before.
We need to wait for the stats from the savage fights to really be sure of how melee compare to ranged jobs. A few dungeons and 2 extremes are not enough to judge.

In a way, melee should have more DPS than ranged DPS, but yes, the gap should be slightly reduced.

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I would like to believe this but players will always find melee uptime strategies that end up with melee still having 99% and above uptime. Lets also not forget that melee jobs like VPR and NIN have ranged GCDs in their kit that they can store for such scenarios. VPR being the worst offender of this being able to store up to 3 ranged GCDS in which the oGCDS also have the same 20y range and result in no real DPS loss. So if there is ever a fight that forces you to peel off consistently throughout what you will actually see is that a job like VPR becomes significantly better than most of the other jobs in the game.

I can bet however that VPR would never ever be taxed in any kind of way because its a Melee DPS even if it has no downtime.

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Originally Posted by CrystalAurora

I would like to believe this but players will always find melee uptime strategies that end up with melee still having 99% and above uptime. Lets also not forget that melee jobs like VPR and NIN have ranged GCDs in their kit that they can store for such scenarios. VPR being the worst offender of this being able to store up to 3 ranged GCDS in which the oGCDS also have the same 20y range and result in no real DPS loss. So if there is ever a fight that forces you to peel off consistently throughout what you will actually see is that a job like VPR becomes significantly better than most of the other jobs in the game.

I can bet however that VPR would never ever be taxed in any kind of way because its a Melee DPS even if it has no downtime.

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Not only ranged GCDs, but with a massive recast (3.5s).

Chiming in on the Viper/Ninja thing, although they can disconnect very easily compared to other melees, there's still Auto Attacks to consider. Swiftscale and Nin's haste decrease the auto attack timer by a significant margin. If a Viper just does triple Uncoiled Fury without being in melee range, they keep their GCD rolling, but they do lose uptime on autos. In that case, the Viper would lose around 400 or 500 potency from the missed autos. It seems small but worth trying to stick to the boss even if you are using UF.

That said, I agree with most other things in this thread. I had to quit RDM when I was doing Anabaseios in PF because I was so tired of underperforming melee doing, like, 2k more DPS than me while I was fighting my heart out. Judging by PCT, it might be the Resurrection keeping RDM and SMN down, but BLM isn't doing so hot right now either.

And Aiming players, rest in peace. They need to do something for that role stat or there will be a huge shortage in Arcadion.

I was planning maining BLM or PCT, then I saw how much we need the to move and went SMN, might go VPR.

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Originally Posted by W00by

Chiming in on the Viper/Ninja thing, although they can disconnect very easily compared to other melees, there's still Auto Attacks to consider. Swiftscale and Nin's haste decrease the auto attack timer by a significant margin. If a Viper just does triple Uncoiled Fury without being in melee range, they keep their GCD rolling, but they do lose uptime on autos. In that case, the Viper would lose around 400 or 500 potency from the missed autos. It seems small but worth trying to stick to the boss even if you are using UF.

That said, I agree with most other things in this thread. I had to quit RDM when I was doing Anabaseios in PF because I was so tired of underperforming melee doing, like, 2k more DPS than me while I was fighting my heart out. Judging by PCT, it might be the Resurrection keeping RDM and SMN down, but BLM isn't doing so hot right now either.

And Aiming players, rest in peace. They need to do something for that role stat or there will be a huge shortage in Arcadion.

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Yes of course but when you are comparing said classes to other jobs in their role who have very low potency ranged attacks and who are also still missing some auto attacks from disengaging the gap between them would only increase the more that the boss forces disengage... not that I actually think that any sort of significant disengage will happen and I am not sure why people are expecting there to be enough to make the ranged tax meaningful.

As far as the Phys Ranged shortage I will say that it was already noticeable in Endwalker and considering they didn't do anything to draw people back into that role I expect it to be the same. Switching to melee last expansion was just funny to see that in a significant portion of the PFs healers would fill quicker than the physical ranged spot in savage.

My point with NIN and VPR was that because their auto attack CD is shorter, they miss more Autos than other jobs would. But they still handle downtime better, yeah.

I'm already feeling the ranged shortage, man. Recruiting for my Savage static, I can find a million and one melees but literally no aiming.

Just recruit another caster, it's pretty much the same thing. Preferably a rdm if you need someone with a defensive. Magic barrier is pretty much the same thing unless the buster is a phys attack, which, you know, are pretty rare for raidbusters.

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Originally Posted by Thyrand

I love ranged complaining about melees when they got it way easier in every single aspect in this game

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I assume you just mean phys ranged? Because melees have had it easier than casters for the entirety of Endwalker with solar system sized hitboxes. Nice to see smaller hitboxes again, melees gotta work to justify that extra damage they do. Even if you do mean only phys-ranged, I'd argue bard is harder than a good portion of the melee roster

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Originally Posted by Basteala

Picto maybe. Black Mage is *barely* above the other casters in damage right now. It's base damage is worse than Picto's, and it has no utility--and it's actually hard to play. Until SE fixes this, Black Mages won't be on the bench, they'll BE the bench.

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Nah, we'll be the Pictos lol

Phys range is in a bad spot
Bard is still a very awful job due to the tripling down on the song rotation and radiant finale.
Dancer basically became more brainless and overcaps on esprit like hell.
Machinist feels fine I guess but it's damage is awful.

Yeah bringing a picto to replace Phys range is a better choice tbh. Even RDM too since it has a raid buff and a raid shield. Phys range needs a complete role rework.

BRD is in a really bad spot as it’s a legit complex job that gets terrible damage because of its role

If BRD was the same job but as a melee it would be up with RPR and VPR for the top spot, but since it’s a phys ranged it just gets randomly declared to do low damage despite its apparent complexity

Role shouldn’t dictate thereotical upper damage limits, job design should because right now BRD puts in so much effort to get so little out of it

Let's not push it BRD is far from complex at a basic level. It's just finicky, not intuitive and annoying to optimize, but it's not exact rocket science either.

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Originally Posted by Ramiee

Phys range is in a bad spot
Bard is still a very awful job due to the tripling down on the song rotation and radiant finale.
Dancer basically became more brainless and overcaps on esprit like hell.
Machinist feels fine I guess but it's damage is awful.

Yeah bringing a picto to replace Phys range is a better choice tbh. Even RDM too since it has a raid buff and a raid shield. Phys range needs a complete role rework.

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What's wrong with the song rotation? Besides that the recast could be adjusted? I think it's a neat and unique concept proper to the job. I'd kill to get something flavorful like that on mch...

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Originally Posted by Valence

Let's not push it BRD is far from complex at a basic level. It's just finicky, not intuitive and annoying to optimize, but it's not exact rocket science either.



What's wrong with the song rotation? Besides that the recast could be adjusted? I think it's a neat and unique concept proper to the job. I'd kill to get something flavorful like that on mch...

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I mean finicky not intuitive and annoying to optimise are exactly what makes it a difficult job

Think about it at baseline SAM is just keep banana up, do your midare loops spam shinten with kenki. Optimising it at baseline involves hagakure filler sticker dumps but it’s in the same position in the sense of it’s easy to just press everything as it lights up and do decent damage

BRD isn’t as hard to gold parse optimise as SAM but I’d certainly have it as harder than RPR, harder than NIN and around the DRG level

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Originally Posted by EdwinLi

At this point they should just do what most old MMOs do with the whole DPS job situation. Do not give a care about the aspect of them be Melee, Range, and Mages. Just make them all do BIG damage and do not let the whole Mobility aspect of a job affect them.

If players want the enjoyment of big DPS with melee range encounters then let it them just play Melee DPS, if they want Mage Experience with cast time to do BIG DPS then let them be mages, and if they want to do big DPS equal to Melee and Mages without the risk of Melee and Mage's cast time then let them play Physical Range DPS.

This is how it mostly was in older MMOs and why Gun Jobs (or any mobile DPS jobs sometimes) in those that introduce them tend to be absurdly overpowered and it is just mostly player choosing melee, mages, or range as a preference.

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So then Physrange becomes the best and then people complain about that instead.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I mean finicky not intuitive and annoying to optimise are exactly what makes it a difficult job

Think about it at baseline SAM is just keep banana up, do your midare loops spam shinten with kenki. Optimising it at baseline involves hagakure filler sticker dumps but it’s in the same position in the sense of it’s easy to just press everything as it lights up and do decent damage

BRD isn’t as hard to gold parse optimise as SAM but I’d certainly have it as harder than RPR, harder than NIN and around the DRG level

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Well, then you also have third eye and a lot of trial and error to see what you can get away with.
With some support, you can even take some tankbusters JUST for 10 extra Kenki. That's largely why parsing as Sam is difficult. Most of us don't go that extra mile.
The job itself isn't really complex- none of the jobs in this game are. I mean, i've seen groups let the Sam pull every fight JUST for 10 Kenki after the auto attack.