Will they ever add melee DPS without positional attacks?

[Dualgunner]

How about we just give melee some more ranged options and shorten caster cast time to the point its basically instant, homogenize all the jobs even further

I mean, first off he only asked for *a* melee without positionals. I find it funny you're crying that he's the one who's wanting homogenization while stalwartly defending that every melee dps *must* have positionals.

[FeliAiko]

The thing that trips people up with positionals is that they think they have to be positioned directly on the E/W sides of the target for the positional to count. As long as you're at the SW/SE side then you are at the flank, so it's literally just hit a GCD, move 1-2 steps during the downtime, hit next GCD and repeat. As for bosses spinning around etc. fights are scripted so unless you have a bad tank then it's simply a matter of knowing/anticipating when those moments are going happen and act accordingly.

Anyways if you want a job with no positionals, SAMs your closest bet since their positional bonuses are potency based IIRC.

[bustamanteverde]

SAM is definitely the job you want if you do not want to deal with the "melee dance" FFXIV has going on. Having played a caster, tank, and melee I always feel DPS melee have a hell of a time compared to my BLM/RDM due to having to avoid boss mechanics like cleaves, aoes, and etc.. my BLM just casts non stop till they have to avoid an aoe. SAM definitely feels superior to MNK with that powerful feel but less crack head dancing.

[Kabooa]

I mean, first off he only asked for *a* melee without positionals. I find it funny you're crying that he's the one who's wanting homogenization while stalwartly defending that every melee dps *must* have positionals.

Okay, that got a laugh out of me.

[Shiroe]

posionals or not, blm is still the most difficult dps in difficult end raids...

and the most difficult melee are not difficult cause of the positonals, but cause of the rota / timing / aligning of ogcds (Drg and Nin are the "difficult" melees in SB; which both are not as positonal heavy, as the "easier" melees Sam and Mnk are.. , well between Sam and Drg positonals, Drg actually has more, but its not the positonals that make it tricky, they are more predictable than Sams somehow)

imo Sam is probably the easiest melee, just seemed hard, till the community figured out its correct rota / ocgd usage..., mnk imo close 2nd or as "easy", once the positonals are a little bit in the muscle memory

whlie Drg and Nin, the most loved melee are the most difficult in SB.., seems fair .. want a "wanted dps, need to earn it" (imo in HW and ARR, Drg was the easiest melee ... and mnk was the hardest or one of the hardest, because of the positonals back then...the rotas of the others where "simple" compared to SB; when you reach lv 50 mnk and sam might seem hard, but at by the time you reach 60, they wont feel so difficult thx to the positonals routine)

[Ryaz]

SAM is definitely the job you want if you do not want to deal with the "melee dance" FFXIV has going on. Having played a caster, tank, and melee I always feel DPS melee have a hell of a time compared to my BLM/RDM due to having to avoid boss mechanics like cleaves, aoes, and etc.. my BLM just casts non stop till they have to avoid an aoe. SAM definitely feels superior to MNK with that powerful feel but less crack head dancing.

I wouldn't say SAM is a class you want if you want to ignore positionals. True, the easy skill floor makes the class do OK DPS just spamming Midare, but it's the use of Kenki that really brings the class up. One missed positional is 5 Kenki, which is 1/5th of a Shinten which means every missed positional is a loss equal to 60 potency.

I'm all for a melee class not relying on positionals, but SE would have to come up with another mechanic to create a skill gap, though, to keep it interesting for higher skilled players.

[NotADps]

i don't get why people keep saying ninja is a hard melee...i mean on 3.x w/o a warrior ninja was kinda challenging if there was downtime/disengage mechanics, but now?it only has 1 dot that its now a combo finisher that you only need to do once every 3 combos, dwd is now 60sec cd, we don't need to align 90sec cds with b4b like before. the only kind of hard part is optimizing ninki usage on fights...also about positional, it does make the gameplay of melee harder if you're optimizing, because you're constantly losing damage with every positional you miss, and on endgame fights with bosses mechanics that often force you to even lose uptime, hitting your positionals is very tricky.

[Selvokaz]

your always opposite the tank as is, so you're likely behind the boss at all times, which is where most dps positional attacks require you to be, and in the case that you aren't you have true north.

[TaiyoShikasu]

I'm baffled that people believe positionals make for engaging melee dps gameplay. Quite a few other games with better combat have melee without positionals and still manage to be far more fun.

I believe myself that complexity in MMO combat should be in the boss mechanics, your rotation (easy to learn, hard to master), situations where your rotation allows you to adapt on the spot for extra damage, lining up dps cooldowns with boss phases where you have max uptime, making full use of all utility and so on. Navigating clunkiness like positionals on a spinning boss or animation locks isn't skill, it's artificial difficulty.

Positionals are just tedious sometimes in regular play too. For example as a ninja questing, you'll never get behind a mob for your finisher so you're always slightly gimped. Or trying to trick attack a SB A-rank while on the hunt deserves a medal if you pull it off more than half the time. These aren't necessary to play the game, but certainly don't make the combat feel smooth in day-to-day gaming.

The concept of artificial difficulty seems lost on a lot of players. Clunky job design where you're battling yourself more than any encounter? Just like get good. Instances with horribly balanced mobs? Again, just get good. Encounters where the camera is a bigger obstacle than mechanics? Why haven't you gotten good yet?

[Sawamura]

Well I don´t think SE will ever create a melee DPS without positional beside tank. During they want melee have downtime for miss positional and skill gap. So range/mage dps don´t fall behind melee dps with movement/low dps output or they will need to add fight be like Neo Exdeath type with everyone downtime. Well though SE already add alot new content without positional fight already O5,O6,HoH and eureka.