Massive fail by Matsui - telling melee range to suck it up for not getting invites

[Sigtyr]

The reason why Archers are chosen over Melee is quite simple.

Archer do just as much, if not more, damage than melee, without having to interrupt themselves to avoid AoE or put themselves at risk of being struck by said AoE. I've learned that the best place for a non-gladiator melee was on the sides of the Void Slave, however with Inferno drop, you still need to stop DPSing and move out of it's range. Archers have just as much reward as melee with none of the risk. Neither the dungeons, nor the archers need nerfs, melee classes have to be given buffs, to match the amount of risk associated with being on the front lines.

[VydarrTyr]

The reason why Archers are chosen over Melee is quite simple.

Archer do just as much, if not more, damage than melee, without having to interrupt themselves to avoid AoE or put themselves at risk of being struck by said AoE. I've learned that the best place for a non-gladiator melee was on the sides of the Void Slave, however with Inferno drop, you still need to stop DPSing and move out of it's range. Archers have just as much reward as melee with none of the risk. Neither the dungeons, nor the archers need nerfs, melee classes have to be given buffs, to match the amount of risk associated with being on the front lines.

Aye, there's the rub.

The issue is not whether it's possible to run the dungeons with close-range DPS. As Blood Lotus and others have shown, it absolutely is possible. The issue is whether it's practical to do so. And as long as it's easier to run the dungeons with Arcs -- and I think we can all agree that it is -- then Arcs will be relatively more valuable.

Like Sigtyr said, the problem is that Arcs are inherently superior to other melee DPS. They can stand somewhere so that they can damage the mob, but do not suffer any damage themselves. And with vastly increased MP costs from heals, and changed enmity algorithms, it's simply impractical to cure entire parties that are suffering damage.

So the issue becomes, how do you balance encounters so that parties need close-range melee?

1) Make mobs resistant to piercing damage. But that's also going to hurt Lancers, which we don't want to do.

2) Put fights in confined areas, so that the mob's attacks hit everyone. But that's going to kill off the healers faster than the Arcs, and we don't want that.

3) Give the mob a donut-shaped attack (like Iron Tempest), so that it hits party members far away, but not up close. But again, that's going to wipe out the healers faster than the Arcs.

4) Spawn mobs that attack ranged party members. I think this is what SE was doing with the ghosts -- which are mostly positioned away from the Ogre -- and with the skeletons -- which spawn away from 2nd boss and attack from the outside in, hitting ranged attackers first. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have worked, since Arcs aren't actually at a disadvantage to other melee in those encounters.

5) Nerf the bosses' attacks. This may be the worst of all worlds. Because it might work, but only because the fights would be so easy that no one would care who was included in the party. Let's hope they don't remove strategy to be more all-inclusive.

6) Reduce MP costs and enmity generation from heals. Again, it would only work because the fights would become easier, so no one would care who was included in the party. Perfectly balanced classes are nice, but it's not worth much if the gameplay isn't fun and challenging.

7) Nerf Arcs/Make everyone else stronger. Not the most attractive solution. I think we all hate the idea of nerfing any classes. Every class should be fun to play.

So what's the answer? Hell, I don't know. Maybe a donut-shaped "darkness/blindness" spell that hits ranged attackers? Put up magic barriers around the mob, so that ranged attackers have to periodically activate nodes to lower the barriers and resume ranged attacks? But those just seem like indirect nerfs of Arcs, and do not address the fundamental imbalance.

I don't think the current system is broken. In fact, it works, and I'm having a ton of fun with it. And I think the OP's title is inaccurate and inflammatory. (If anything, Matsui said the opposite of what the OP's title is implying.) But I'll be danged if I can figure out a simple solution to balancing ranged DPS.