On the Removal of Positionals

[Eudyptes]

Last time I suggested the addition of new melee DPS jobs without positionals (emphasis on new, I don't want old ones to alienate their fans by deleting their positionals), I got dogpiled by every melee and their mothers because it was somehow a direct attack onto "the identity of the melee DPS role".

Not gonna lie, I think the people who like positionals are just a loud minority. if they got rid of all of them tomorrow you'd see a huge stink about it but the actual amount of melee players would remain largely unchanged. Kinda like how that healer's strike went.

The point here is that positionals are an intrinsic element of melee, just like cast times are for casters. Asking for positionals to be removed is like asking for all cast times to be instant.

There's a reason why SMN is such a contentious job for caster players.

No is isn't. Name one other game with melee that has positionals. Cause I can name many with cast times for casters. The identity of melee is being up close and personal. That's it. The built in difficulty is needing to work around enemies moving and AE's around them.

Also I'm pretty sure the reason smn is such a contentious job is because it effectively is just the same 4 or 5 buttons over and over, not cause cast times are removed.

[Aco505]

No is isn't. Name one other game with melee that has positionals.

In this game it is, because all melee DPS job have them, including the new one released mere days ago.

But WoW has also had positionals: Backstab, Ambush, Shred, Ravage, Pounce, avoiding the front and sometimes back of bosses to not get parried or tail smashed, etc.

[Eudyptes]

But WoW has also had positionals: Backstab, Ambush, Shred, Ravage, Pounce, avoiding the front and sometimes back of bosses to not get parried or tail smashed, etc.

You know what, you're right about that first part of the sentence. But there is also a reason they are all gone now. They are largely a bad idea because mechanics make them inconsistent, just like they do now in this game. And as for the second part...those are literally just enemy mechanics. A tail smash is a boss mechanic that prevents you from getting behind an enemy to do those back positionals. So like, what's the point of having a danger zone AND being punished via doing subpar damage?

[Aco505]

A tail smash is a boss mechanic that prevents you from getting behind an enemy to do those back positionals. So like, what's the point of having a danger zone AND being punished via doing subpar damage?

You can hit a Backstab without getting hit by a tail smash. It requires proper positioning. Also abilities such as Backstab still behave as positionals to this day in WoW.

[Taliriah]

You know what, you're right about that first part of the sentence. But there is also a reason they are all gone now. They are largely a bad idea because mechanics make them inconsistent, just like they do now in this game. And as for the second part...those are literally just enemy mechanics. A tail smash is a boss mechanic that prevents you from getting behind an enemy to do those back positionals. So like, what's the point of having a danger zone AND being punished via doing subpar damage?

You move into the danger zone when you need to hit a positional and out of it when you don't. And if you can't move in for the positional because of a mechanic or because the tail swipe is being telegraphed, you use true north instead. The whole point is that you have to move instead of comfortably sitting in one place.

[Eudyptes]

You move into the danger zone when you need to hit a positional and out of it when you don't. And if you can't move in for the positional because of a mechanic or because the tail swipe is being telegraphed, you use true north instead. The whole point is that you have to move instead of comfortably sitting in one place.

I see this "explanation" all the time but it does not work outside of a vacuum (bosses don't just simply stand still). In actual boss fights there aren't enough TN charges to cover every positional you can't hit due to mechanics on like 90% of bosses now. I mean this is literally why they have been removing them more and more and reducing the potency lost over the years. Because even SE knows it's just not feasable and if they left it as it used to be melee would either be flat out the inferior role, or they would have to make the bonus so high that they would be insanely broken on the boss fights that remove positionals already.

I'm sorry, but it's just a bad system. Imo they should be removed entirely so boss fights can be designed entirely without them in mind. It'll allow for even more unique and interesting mechanic options. Which I mean already seems to be the direction they are going anyway.

[Aco505]

In actual boss fights there aren't enough TN charges to cover every positional you can't hit due to mechanics on like 90% of bosses now. I mean this is literally why they have been removing them more and more and reducing the potency lost over the years. Because even SE knows it's just not feasable and if they left it as it used to be melee would either be flat out the inferior role, or they would have to make the bonus so high that they would be insanely broken on the boss fights that remove positionals already.

I'm sorry, but it's just a bad system. Imo they should be removed entirely so boss fights can be designed entirely without them in mind. It'll allow for even more unique and interesting mechanic options. Which I mean already seems to be the direction they are going anyway.

People have been hitting almost if not all positionals in the hard content where they're actually challenging to get like Ultimates, P3S, P5S or P11S.

Also, missing positionals hardly means taking huge damage losses, quite the opposite. Whether this should change or not is a different question.

Positionals have never dictated fight design, otherwise all omnidirectional fights would be great yet they're not (e. g. P7S).

[Eudyptes]

People have been hitting almost if not all positionals in the hard content where they're actually challenging to get like Ultimates, P3S, P5S or P11S.

Also, missing positionals hardly means taking huge damage losses, quite the opposite. Whether this should change or not is a different question.

Positionals have never dictated fight design, otherwise all omnidirectional fights would be great yet they're not (e. g. P7S).

I didn't say they dictated fight design, I said it's in the back of their mind (very big difference there). They are not at the fore front of designing encounters, but they do have to be considered since all roles have to be considered. In fact that's exactly why they are reduced as much as they are now, because we simply cannot have today's fights with ARR's positionals. Ultimate raiders also do not hit every positional unless they fight is extremely immobile, I've been raiding for years, there are many fights we just outright ignore positonals during certain parts of the fight just because you wll screw up/risk screwing up a mechanic to hit them and the loss nowadays isn't really a big deal.

That said, my point was never about how big a deal it is to miss them, but rather the fact that missing them for playing the game correctly is bad design. It doesn't matter if it's 1 damage loss or 1000.