Shadowbringers Melee DPS Role: Complaints, Feedback, and Suggestions

[ssunny2008]

... what? You'd still prioritize your single target combo because it deals more damage. It wouldn't change anything else except make the Melee less punished when forced to disengage. Which is fair because no other role has this issue. In fact, they specifically gave Black Mage a slew of movement tools to help mitigate that exact problem. Furthermore, there is no decision making with Dragoon. Piercing Talon is always a loss. It's complete garbage.

It´s not about prioritize or not. The point is, that disengages are the only real con every melee has. If you give them a strong tool to get ride of this issue, they could even get ride of the mechanic and leave them stuck at the boss. You don´t have to take care for timings or anything anymore, you can play easily save without that big DPS loss. It would be even way too forgivable for personal missplays.

It´s not even about fair either, because it´s alright imo. Caster have casting times, Melees have to deal with the downtimes meanwhile phys. Range don´t have to deal with anything of that, but do overall less damage. It´s definately fair and the only reason why BLM shines imo, is because the actual tier is way to friendly to him. I remember times where nearly noone played BLM or noone wanted them in the party for obvious reasons. And those tools are not permanent ready. Any mechanic or RNG into your leylines or hardcasts is pain.

Such "punishments" are part of the game and class design and they should definately stay.

[ForteNightshade]

It´s not about prioritize or not. The point is, that disengages are the only real con every melee has. If you give them a strong tool to get ride of this issue, they could even get ride of the mechanic and leave them stuck at the boss. You don´t have to take care for timings or anything anymore, you can play easily save without that big DPS loss. It would be even way too forgivable for personal missplays.

Yes, it is. Literally every example you gave boils down to "will I do more damage if I perform y." This doesn't change with stronger range attacks. For example, in E11S, I have to disengage for Lightning cycle, there's a period of roughly two GCDs where I can't attack. There is no thought here, no decision making. I've already greeded the cast bar with Sprint. I literally do nothing because Piercing Talon is garbage. Making it not break my combo essentially gives me a button to press in this window where I'm otherwise taking a sip of coffee. Ninja's mudras actually add depth because they have a range option to fall back on whereas the other Melee don't, though Samurai can at least make theirs work.

You also keep ignoring Dragoon's range attack is worthless. It's so weak, there's literally zero reason to have it on your hotbar. That isn't fair, it's bad design.

It´s not even about fair either, because it´s alright imo. Caster have casting times, Melees have to deal with the downtimes meanwhile phys. Range don´t have to deal with anything of that, but do overall less damage. It´s definately fair and the only reason why BLM shines imo, is because the actual tier is way to friendly to him. I remember times where nearly noone played BLM or noone wanted them in the party for obvious reasons. And those tools are not permanent ready. Any mechanic or RNG into your leylines or hardcasts is pain.

Except Casters have options to fall back on. Summoner practically laughs at movement mechanics because they have so many instant casts. In fact, the only Caster remotely hindered by heavy movement is, ironically, Red Mage. And even they have Dualcast and Swiftcast to play with. The Melee have nothing. We just lose damage. Now if we were the strongest role in the game, you could make the argument of this being the trade off. But we aren't. Black Mage and Summoner deal more damage... despite having zero hindrance from movement. Even Red Mage is ahead of most Melee. So there is an imbalance here. Furthermore, it isn't this tier being friendly to Black Mage. They've been given a massive amount of movement tools specifically to address complaints about movement.

The whole purpose of learning how to play Black Mage is discovering where you can place Leylines, when you need to hold Triplecast and etc. That's primarily why its rotation is fairly basic. The actual difficulty comes from learning how you can turret. Melee don't have this option. If a mechanic requires they disengage, they just lose damage.

So having abilities so useless, you take them off your hotbar is "part of the game and class design"? Monk doesn't even have to worry. They don't have one to begin with. That also part of the design? Do literally nothing. Definitely good design...

[Kabooa]

The whole purpose of learning how to play Black Mage is discovering where you can place Leylines, when you need to hold Triplecast and etc. That's primarily why its rotation is fairly basic. The actual difficulty comes from learning how you can turret. Melee don't have this option. If a mechanic requires they disengage, they just lose damage.

So having abilities so useless, you take them off your hotbar is "part of the game and class design"? Monk doesn't even have to worry. They don't have one to begin with. That also part of the design? Do literally nothing. Definitely good design...

It's worth pointing out that one of the countless pre-expansion interviews going about asked YoshiP about this, and his response was that they're looking into it because "Adding more mechanics specifically makes things harder for those in Melee range".

What this means, who knows, though if that does include having options to minimize the punishment of disengaging, we may see more mechanics with forced disengagement but having options to utilize. Hopefully said options have a proper do/don't weight to it, instead of "Piercing Talon doesn't break combos and hits harder".

But that's also the primary advantage ranged still hold at the moment, so if that goes, there's going to need to be some reevaluation needed there.

[CKNovel]

Alright let's think about a melee solution when it comes to range.
The current problem is that mechanics can punish melees with downtime randomly or that some will not enjoy having a GCD available and not being able to use it.
We need a solution that doesn't punish downtime that heavily without touching mechanics, while allowing creative ways exist, a bit like true north.

Here's my amazing solution you'll surely all enjoy:

1 new ranged Cooldown, let's say 30/45s and 2 charges.
This new ability allows your next GCDs to be used at a higher range, 15 yalms like Piercing Talon, and makes your rotation goes forward upon use.

This way, melees have 5 seconds every 30 secondes where they can be far while keeping the creativity and mechanics can remains the same as usual.
Any opinions?

[Mikey_R]

Some of the challenge of melee IS finding where you can get in to hit the boss, how much can you risk staying in, when is the soonest I can charge back in. By making these decisions non existent, you make melees less fun to play.

Do people not think that SE take into account disengages when they 'balance' melee DPS? Do you think they just go, screw it, it doesn't matter. No, Melees will naturally have higher DPS when hitting a dummy to account for the fact they cannot be 100% on a boss.

I don't understand the recent influx of people wanting to take away everything that makes melee DPS fun in the first place, positionals, disengages etc. Not every job is for everyone and that is fine. Infact, if you want a controversial opinion, I am not a fan of using Dancer, despite it being one of the more popular jobs. The amount of RNG that goes into just its basic rotation puts me off. However, I am not going to be that person that tries to make the job something I want. I just don't play it often and leave it for the people who DO enjoy playing it.

[IruruCece]

1 new ranged Cooldown, let's say 30/45s and 2 charges.
This new ability allows your next GCDs to be used at a higher range, 15 yalms like Piercing Talon, and makes your rotation goes forward upon use.

This way, melees have 5 seconds every 30 secondes where they can be far while keeping the creativity and mechanics can remains the same as usual.
Any opinions?

The last thing I want on any melee is another hyper situational button like True North, which is really only useful in bursts to Monk specifically because it has so many positionals to worry about. (It's also important to remember that True North got changed most likely because it was allowing monks to ignore said positionals for a very long time on conjunction with Earth's Reply, and I often saw a lot of monks use it in that regard).

Given FF14's encounter design, you will have players still whining that 15 yalms isn't enough, because something will inevitably push them out of that range by design, and frankly those same players will also still complain about positionals anyway.

[ssunny2008]

snip

It´s up to you to ignore the given tools and in your special case it´s poor raid design and not an issue with the class, but still playable.
Away from this, E11s is even the most melee friendly fight this tier, if not from the whole expansion. Those 2 GCD´s means nothing there. On the other hand you could go for 2 ranged attacks, it´s still 300 potency and in the end probably more worth than nothing just to save your rotation. It might be even possible to hold the gap as close as possible with the use of the backjump in the safespot combined with a delayed jump back to the boss.

About the class thing... Redmage and Summoner are BEHIND ALL melee classes in damage this tier. BLM is the only number 1 close followed by SAM. And again, it´s only because this tier is really really friendly to all those BLM´s out there.
Overall the balancing is fine, all of them are close to each other and that one rare DPS loss caused by the obvious fact that you´re a melee, is nothing. Only phys. range could debate about the big gap in damage for some reason, even if i think 2k DPS less by top players is still "ok". But it definately shouldn´t be more and might move to 1k.

Melees have their options and you can greed the hell out of a lot of mechanics. SAM can easily use backdash, range, dash. DRG could possibly do the same. NIN has ninjutsus anyway and MNK the SSS or chakra for those 0,5s. Especially in E11s you can reach 100% uptime easily. Even with my MNK it works nearly perfectly, so it shouldn´t be an issue with DRG, who has ~0,5s more on the GCD timer.

And yes, MNK doesn´t have to worry about range and that´s great. SSS is a great tool and fits the class 100%, even if you might lose that 0,5s or whatever if you´re using it in some situations. The DPS loss about that is a joke and it´s definately calculated from SE since, again, the balancing is really good and well played melee careers are top DPS imo. If the mechanics continue to be so "BLM friendly", give him and SAM a little nerf and all is fine.

Some of the challenge of melee IS finding where you can get in to hit the boss, how much can you risk staying in, when is the soonest I can charge back in. By making these decisions non existent, you make melees less fun to play.

Do people not think that SE take into account disengages when they 'balance' melee DPS? Do you think they just go, screw it, it doesn't matter. No, Melees will naturally have higher DPS when hitting a dummy to account for the fact they cannot be 100% on a boss.

I don't understand the recent influx of people wanting to take away everything that makes melee DPS fun in the first place, positionals, disengages etc. Not every job is for everyone and that is fine. Infact, if you want a controversial opinion, I am not a fan of using Dancer, despite it being one of the more popular jobs. The amount of RNG that goes into just its basic rotation puts me off. However, I am not going to be that person that tries to make the job something I want. I just don't play it often and leave it for the people who DO enjoy playing it.

Agree 100%

[Kabooa]

Alright let's think about a melee solution when it comes to range.
The current problem is that mechanics can punish melees with downtime randomly or that some will not enjoy having a GCD available and not being able to use it.
We need a solution that doesn't punish downtime that heavily without touching mechanics, while allowing creative ways exist, a bit like true north.

Here's my amazing solution you'll surely all enjoy:

1 new ranged Cooldown, let's say 30/45s and 2 charges.
This new ability allows your next GCDs to be used at a higher range, 15 yalms like Piercing Talon, and makes your rotation goes forward upon use.

This way, melees have 5 seconds every 30 secondes where they can be far while keeping the creativity and mechanics can remains the same as usual.
Any opinions?

We can call it True South!

[Kolsykol]

I can mainly speak to Monk and I really feel like your complaints are a bit silly.
I mean yeah duh you need uninterrupted uptime on the boss for the burst phase, so does every other DPS if you start bursting the boss with a caster and there's lots of movement guess what happens.
Or if you pop Ten Chi Jin with Ninja.
The burst phase isn't nearly as tight as you're making it sound either it's not even that big of a deal to clip a little if you have to in order to line things up, I'd honestly say that Monk is quite forgiving and adaptable in that regard.
Potentially you can also just do two Dragon Kicks instead of clipping before the burst phase in most cases.
Most of your other complaints too just sounds like you tried playing Monk for a short while then gave up.
Pretty much the only complaint I agree with is that Anatman sucks but not for the reasons you mentioned.

Same with Sam and Ninja really which I also play altho not a much as Monk but I've been playing Sam more actively recently, I mean sure Assassinate locks you in but you don't need to use it right away you actually do have time to move without it becoming unusable.
I dunno if I'd want to get launched back further either, I almost think you'd be complaining then too because you'd get thrown out of the arena or into something else at times then.
It's not meant to just be a '' I cba to move altogether '' button.
I wouldn't call it a nightmare rotation too it's honestly quite simple to realign things if you don't have full uptime, usually what happens is quite simply that you end up skipping the filler phase and move directly into the burst phase.
Sometimes you have to adapt and do some reacting based on your intuition and knowledge of the Job, that's part of the fun and what makes the combat engaging.

I pretty much agree with everything ForteNightshade said it really just sounds like you want the gameplay to be hitting a target dummy and for Jobs to be watered down beyond belief.
Altho I dunno if I agree with better ranged options, just that Monk needs one :P...

In regards to the positionals I really think that people should think about it a bit differently.
I don't really consider Rear attacks to be positionals in boss fights, because you're meant to be standing behind the boss to begin with.
Think of it as one positional instead of two and it might feel less bad.
I mean where else are you standing, in front of the boss?
It's either at the Rear or Flank, so you only have to move from one point and back.

Edit: Btw you don't need to use Shoulder Tackle on cooldown either.
In fact it's often to be prefered to keep one charge around at least for the burst phase and you can still use that one as utility if needed.

[ForteNightshade]

It´s up to you to ignore the given tools and in your special case it´s poor raid design and not an issue with the class, but still playable.
Away from this, E11s is even the most melee friendly fight this tier, if not from the whole expansion. Those 2 GCD´s means nothing there. On the other hand you could go for 2 ranged attacks, it´s still 300 potency and in the end probably more worth than nothing just to save your rotation. It might be even possible to hold the gap as close as possible with the use of the backjump in the safespot combined with a delayed jump back to the boss.

Now you're just making assumptions. I don't know how many times I needs reiterate this. Piercing Talon is always a loss. It's a meager 150 potency. Therefore, it takes four uses for it to surpass Full Thrust in damage. Except... it gets even worse because by breaking your combo, you'll lose out on the subsequent 370 from Fang/Wheeling, which go onto buff the next hit. Even Raiden Thrust, your weakest ability, necessitates three usages of Piercing to eclipse its damage. This has long been mathed out by theorycrafters, and one of the principle examples for range attacks not breaking combos. Piercing Talon is so laughably break, Dragoons defaulted to their AoE combo in E8S. And even that's still a loss unless you're on Fang/Wheeling/Raiden as they're only 10s long combos for some odd reason.

All of this also calculates in the maximum amount of greed.

Ironically, you dismiss your own argument by saying "those two GCDs don't matter." Then why even have range abilities to begin with? The whole point behind their existence is having a supposedly reliable ability to press when forced to disengage for a lengthy enough period you can't keep your GCD rolling. Monk literally doesn't even have one, Dragoon's is so embarrassingly weak they may as well not have one and even Samurai can lose out because it's always a gain to keep your combo over Enpi spam unless you'll lose several GCDs. Ninja is the only Melee with some degree of wiggle room here. In fact, Ninja has typically performed second or even first among Melee in several fights throughout this expansion. Could it possibly be due to the rework allowing it to weave Mudras at range, thus giving it upwards of two GCDs at full potency before dropping to Throwing Daggers? I doubt that has anything at all to do with it...

This has nothing to do with balance in a general sense but the fact Melee range attacks have virtually no purpose. That, and your opening argument doesn't make sense. Per my prior example, Piercing Talon not breaking your combo wouldn't change anything else except to give Dragoon an actual GCD when forced off the boss for long periods like E8S. You'll still want to greed your combo and avoid using range attacks because they're weaker. Having to default to your AoE combo or do nothing at all is simply bad design.

Some of the challenge of melee IS finding where you can get in to hit the boss, how much can you risk staying in, when is the soonest I can charge back in. By making these decisions non existent, you make melees less fun to play.

Do people not think that SE take into account disengages when they 'balance' melee DPS? Do you think they just go, screw it, it doesn't matter. No, Melees will naturally have higher DPS when hitting a dummy to account for the fact they cannot be 100% on a boss.

I don't understand the recent influx of people wanting to take away everything that makes melee DPS fun in the first place, positionals, disengages etc. Not every job is for everyone and that is fine. Infact, if you want a controversial opinion, I am not a fan of using Dancer, despite it being one of the more popular jobs. The amount of RNG that goes into just its basic rotation puts me off. However, I am not going to be that person that tries to make the job something I want. I just don't play it often and leave it for the people who DO enjoy playing it.

No, they often don't. This is why Dragoon dropped to being the weakest non-Range DPS last tier, and Monk barely above it. Neither had any way to combat the frequent downtime in Verse whereas say, Ninja did. Keep in mind, this is the same balance team that went on record saying, "We don't balance Bard and Machinist around Piercing" and then were baffled why Dragoon was basically mandated in every party and why Bard always had such absurd balance creep. In took them four years to realize that was a problem.

And I, equally, don't understand how making Melee Range attacks non-combo breaking takes away from that fun. Like I said above, you'll still prioritize keeping your combo GCD rolling above all else because delaying Full Thrust one GCD to hit Piercing Talon will be a loss. The only difference is you'll actually get to use Piercing Talon or consider spots to put it instead of simply sitting in the corner and sucking your thumb.