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?

[Ramiee]

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.

I think it would be more like not having to be short ranged is more of a comparative with no cast times. To me positionals is like dots Vs no dots on casters, most casters should have dots but there are plenty of fun caster jobs in MMOs without dots too as well as some that are only dots.
I do think I would find a melee job with no positionals very boring though and I don't know what other management could replace it outside maintaining a bunch of personal buffs or something.

[Post]

Except they've never put positionals on ranged/casters (other than occasional boss mechs) and there are melee with casts and p. Ranged that had casts and casters with very few casts.

Like, sure, you're being technically correct, but I feel the point of what Aco505 is pretty clear.

Positionals have usually been a melee role thing in this game. Arguably tanks dealt with it before with old Raw Intuition and before they could block and dodge from the rear, but the design normalcy is there.

[Taliriah]

I'm sorry, how did we go from talking specifically about "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?" to "mechanics on like 90% of bosses now"?

You certainly have no trouble repositioning those goalposts.

[Eudyptes]

I'm sorry, how did we go from talking specifically about "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?" to "mechanics on like 90% of bosses now"?

You certainly have no trouble repositioning those goalposts.

I didn't reposition anything. Those were the goalposts from the start. This entire convo was about positionals in general, and he brought up boss mechanics as being "positionals" themselves. If you only wanted to talk about the WoW tail swipe mechanic that we were talking about, then why did you bring up TN, which doesn't exist in that game?

[Taliriah]

Let's circle back to this "90% of boss mechanics" then. I could say with equal accuracy "90% of bosses have gigantic hit boxes", which justifies the existence of positionals even more, because if the only requirement is to stay inside the giant hitbox it becomes almost as easy as playing ranged.

[Eudyptes]

Let's circle back to this "90% of boss mechanics" then. I could say with equal accuracy "90% of bosses have gigantic hit boxes", which justifies the existence of positionals even more, because if the only requirement is to stay inside the giant hitbox it becomes almost as easy as playing ranged.

Which is exactly why they stated they were reducing the sizes of hitboxes this xpac. Which they largely did (save for the EX's, but those don't even require positionals anyway). I think most melee would agree in general that staying in range was a non-issue in SW and ShB. There were still mechanics that would keep you out of melee range of course, but I don't think anyone is really defending the enormous hitboxes they had before.

But one bad design choice doesn't make another bad design choice good.

[Valence]

Except they've never put positionals on ranged/casters (other than occasional boss mechs) and there are melee with casts and p. Ranged that had casts and casters with very few casts.

Like, sure, you're being technically correct, but I feel the point of what Aco505 is pretty clear.

Positionals have usually been a melee role thing in this game. Arguably tanks dealt with it before with old Raw Intuition and before they could block and dodge from the rear, but the design normalcy is there.

And my point that some things that were taken for granted as the core identity of some roles got extended to others, namely rng procs for example. Therefore, nothing prevents them to extend a positionaless kit to a new melee job someday. I dont really have a horse in this race though.

Which is exactly why they stated they were reducing the sizes of hitboxes this xpac. Which they largely did (save for the EX's, but those don't even require positionals anyway). I think most melee would agree in general that staying in range was a non-issue in SW and ShB. There were still mechanics that would keep you out of melee range of course, but I don't think anyone is really defending the enormous hitboxes they had before.

But one bad design choice doesn't make another bad design choice good.

They have reduced nothing so far. Dungeon bosses hitboxes are still as gigantic as well. I'm still waiting on those promises, but I guess we'll see tomorrow.