Do you find playing melee more difficult?

[Ayden]

I find when I play Melees, most of the time my eyes would be staring at the target ring. Without having the skill effects tuned down, do u guys have problem seeing the target ring clearly?

[Xau]

-snip-

in the past myself i tried to play as melee on controller, it was impossible for me to play it that way, especially because the job i tried to play as was monk, so hitting those positionals was hell for me on controller, besides what for me swaping targets was extremely slow

it all boils down to what method of controlling your character you are more used to, if you are more of a console player, you will be far more used to controllers, but if you are a pc player, you might be used to controllers, or you might not(since most pc games do not require controller)

[Lium]

I simply find it a bit annoying rather than difficult.

...constant worry of heavy damage AoE at melee that force you to stop and run, and higher risks when fighting enemies and bosses since they tend to have more dangerous Melee attacks than range attacks.

This is the biggest issue for me. I always get taken out by boss AoE on my SAM. All it takes is one hit and I'm dead. My SAM is also 61, so it might get better with gear at 70. But it's super frustrating and embarrassing. I like to make my healer's life easy.

It's to the point now where I actually rolled PGL from lvl 1 just to get used to how melee works in this game. With SAM, I started it at 50 so I learned everything on the fly. Gonna level the PGL up till I unlock rogue, then I'll level a ninja to 70.

I'll get my SAM to 70 at some point. But I need start back at level 1.

[Okamimaru]

This is the biggest issue for me. I always get taken out by boss AoE on my SAM. All it takes is one hit and I'm dead. My SAM is also 61, so it might get better with gear at 70. But it's super frustrating and embarrassing. I like to make my healer's life easy.

It's to the point now where I actually rolled PGL from lvl 1 just to get used to how melee works in this game. With SAM, I started it at 50 so I learned everything on the fly. Gonna level the PGL up till I unlock rogue, then I'll level a ninja to 70.

I'll get my SAM to 70 at some point. But I need start back at level 1.

Once you can leap in and out of melee range the point blank aoes are nothing

[wereotter]

I find when I play Melees, most of the time my eyes would be staring at the target ring. Without having the skill effects tuned down, do u guys have problem seeing the target ring clearly?

Yes, especially in 24-man content. As a monk, I've had to completely turn off spell effects just so I can see the target ring, and even then it still is a pain since there's no way to turn off or minimize Asylum, Sacred Soil, Shadow Flare.....

[Schan]

as going to post a massive essay but I'm going to try going for the short version...

Each job has their challenges. It varies from fight to fight and sometimes it varies within the same fight. Different jobs have mechanics aimed at them at different points of the fight. Sometimes melees get it easier while healers and ranged deal with mechanics, sometimes melees needs to do their bit while everyone kinda chills. Everyone has their place.

Dungeon-wise i find tanks to be the easiest by far (which makes me not understand the whole tankxiety thing). People are not that demanding. You're most likely to be more demanding on yourself than others. I literally got my first tank to level 50 back in the day by pretty much just spamming rage of halone combo and flash and people would still commend me. Things do change when we're talking about min-maxing and trials. Especially end game stuff. You need a very in depth knowledge of the fight to maximize your cooldown usage. IMO the only dps that comes close to reaping as many benefits to knowing a fight well is BLM. By this i mean everyone beneficts from knowing the fights but some jobs get more punished than others when you lack such knowledge.

Things are complex and this is just one layer. You also can consider rotations, possible skills that hold you in place (be it animation locks or the different types of "ley lines"), keeping certain buffs / timers up, properly timing of spells / abilities/ weaponskills and your own gamestyle. I'm sure people notice they "click" more with some jobs than others.

With that said i think all jobs deserve respect and i encourage people to give them all a whirl, even if you don't click with the job. Sure you might not be best DPS ever but at least you'll have a semblance of insight of their strengths, weaknesses and hopefully that will help you work better with them when you're playing your main.

Edit: With that said... I have never felt a pit of despair as bad as trying to heal a full ranged dps team as AST in the new 24-man raid. I felt utterly useless. Each on a different corner of those massive arenas. My earthly star (aoe heal) was useless, my collective conscious (mitigation + regen) was useless and my aoe balances (+dmg) missed at least 3 of them every time... just please.... stop being at max range... for the love of the Twelve... just stop being allergic to anything that can remotely help you. The boss aoe damage will get to you no matter where you are. Buffs/heals however will not.

[Kaalia_Stormborn]

As someone who's strictly played a caster class since EverQuest, WoW, and now FFXIV - absolutely. I finally got my rotation down on my DRG, right before taking a break from the game for 6 months, which means i've totally forgotten what I learned and now I'm hesitant to take the DRG into dungeons XD Gotta get some practice dummy time in or maybe some Feast action to get me back into the swing of DRG.

[Fail]

Ranged is always much easier in MMOs. Bosses are given mechanics to make the tank and healer work. These mechanics almost always destroy melee dps. Meanwhile as ranged, you can sit there spamming your abilities, rarely having to worry about death. Even in FFXIV with bosses throwing out room-wide AoEs, it's still much easier to play ranged.

Not only that, but you can actually enjoy the fights and stuff. Instead of spending the whole time with your face at butt level. Some games don't offer the camera distance this game does. So you never get to see anything but the boss' rear.

[Ryaz]

For the most part, I find melee pretty easy. Certain fights can be a problem, like the first boss in Lighthouse. Had an incident last week where I had the choice to die to tsunami or die to 5 massive AoEs that I no chance to run through in time. Was just in a bad position at the time.

But overall, being able to move around and attack feels very smooth to me, where cast times for casters always felt a bit awkward.

[Azerhan]

Ranged is always much easier in MMOs. Bosses are given mechanics to make the tank and healer work. These mechanics almost always destroy melee dps. Meanwhile as ranged, you can sit there spamming your abilities, rarely having to worry about death. Even in FFXIV with bosses throwing out room-wide AoEs, it's still much easier to play ranged.

Not only that, but you can actually enjoy the fights and stuff. Instead of spending the whole time with your face at butt level. Some games don't offer the camera distance this game does. So you never get to see anything but the boss' rear.

MCH is laughing at back. Clearly on of the hardest job to play. Mechanicaly, it's very hard, and much more if you want to play well, and any error is fatal. After playing MCH, I found most of the others jobs easy, because they aren't so much rigid than it.