Melee Range Abilities: And Why They Are Completely Useless

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Perhaps due to the sheer frequency of downtime this tier, this has become increasingly more noticeable. I cannot count the number of times Piercing Talon or Throwing Dagger might be decent... except it's almost always a significant DPS loss. Why is that? Because under no circumstance should you ever break a combo even if it means standing there doing precisely nothing for several seconds. The sole exception is if you know your combo will break. Otherwise, it's a straight loss. As the title implies, this makes these abilities functionally worthless in virtually every scenario.

Therefore, I purpose a simple solution: they no longer break your combo. Admittedly, I think they also need a potency buff given all three are still incredibly weak, but even making them not interrupt your combo at least grants a use. I know this is hardly a game breaker by any means, it's just an annoyance of mine as a melee DPS, especially due to all the downtime we have this tier. Why even have the abilities when they're hardly worth the hot bar space?

And if such a change were implemented, let's give one to Monk.

[Rongway]

Oh, you meant (range abilities) on (melee DDs).
I read the title as ((melee range) abilities).

[Dualgunner]

Oh, you meant (range abilities) on (melee DDs).
I read the title as ((melee range) abilities).

Same tbh.

The ultimate goal of melee is to never break melee. That said, some strats of this tier's latter fights might end up forcing that, so I can see the merit in this suggestion. It has my support.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Apologies, but yes, I meant the range abilities on Melee DPS. I'd edit the title but they won't let me.

[CryBloodwing]

I like them because in POTD, you run to an enemy to attack them...before you can get your skill off, a mage or archer has pulled them and you are then too far away to attack....

[Shurrikhan]

To be fair, Monk once had the best ranged damage ability in the form of Meditation. At a minimum of 543 ePot per HW TFC, or 109 per Chakra, and each Chakra only half to two thirds a GCD, Meditation was worth upwards of 163 potency per GCD (though still low compared to the 295 effective ppgcd of HW True Strike), with the greatest ease of use (no combo dropping, finer global recast increments, and no target required), greatest synergy, unique rotational augmentation (use once at specific breakpoints per ToD-Demolish as not to waste a tick of Demolish, increasing its relative value to 223 ppgcd), and unique burst benefits.

Now Meditation is a joke. The kind you feel bad immediately after telling.

Honestly, though, I feel like all the melee need improvements: to not break combo, to integrate with combos, to have higher potency, or to have lower cost. Ideally, each should have their own unique benefit in that regard. I'd like to see Ninja highly able, and even encouraged, perhaps, to weave in their Throwing Daggers (and/or whatever other variants it may gain).

[Pepsi_Plunge]

Most of the time I use them to finish off Opponents running away in PVP.
But I actually like the throwing ability of the SAM as a part of the "dash backwards, throw stuff, dash forward"-combo. It just feels nice pulling it off to avoid AOEs right around your target where you have to keep your distance anyway.

[Seraphor]

I think either a potency buff, or allowing you to continue your combo, would work well, but not both at the same time.

[Makeda]

I always figured such abilities only existed for me to do ranged chain pulls when soloing in the open world. Just toss something out to a whole lot of enemies to make grouping them up easier.

Only use them in groups in places like deep dungeons or if there's something I want pulled that the tank didn't pull and I think I can get away with it (like some critter guarding a chest)...

[SwarleyMcSwarls]

I will agree that there could be some QoL changes to the ranged attacks to give them more universal use. But, to me, the only class it really feels underwhelming on is dragoon because of how their rotation is set up. Otherwise on ninja you can generally plan things out to end your combo at the start of the down time and easily spam out throwing daggers for easy potency w/o having to worry too much about running dry on tp. And samurai actually handles ranged attacks and down time quite well with their buff to enpi, short and manageable combos, and their ability to meditate for free kenki (they definitely do have tp issues though--especially with high sks builds). And I'm quite pleased with how monk is designed and with them having the ability to meditate or form shift instead of doing direct gcd attacks for damage. So I'm cool w/ them not having any form of ranged gcd.

But yeah, I like the idea. I just would not say that the ranged attacks are completely useless is all.