Meleewalker to Meleetrail

[Lyth]

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This subforum is filled with players either asking for simplifications on melee jobs that they don't play (and in some cases haven't even unlocked), demanding the removal of positionals, or complaining that they don't do more damage than melee while playing at half the APM while at range.

Melee mains in here mostly just want to preserve the gameplay and skill optimization that currently exist on their chosen jobs so that they can keep fights engaging even after a clear. You can also advocate for the more engaging gameplay on your preferred job as well, but don't drag others down by trying to remove optimization from other players' jobs. It's genuinely detrimental to the state of the game.

[CrystalAurora]

This is some EW-revisionism. BLM suffered through a lot of ShB and SB. It became good on either expac only in patch in .4, although BLM was decent in 5.0 before Savage dropped.

Ironically enough you're revising history because BLM was a top tier DPS job the entirety of Shadowbringers, going neck and neck with SMN (Pre nerf) and never dropping out of the top 3.
You have to go back to pre Alphascape in Stormblood to find a time in which the job wasn't getting buffed for an extended period of time during a time in which it was struggling.

Even when it was "Weak" Last expansion it was just weak in that it wasn't a top 2 DPS job... It was just below some of the melee while being on par or above a couple of them without the gap ever being massive between it and the top dps job.

[CrystalAurora]

This subforum is filled with players either asking for simplifications on melee jobs that they don't play (and in some cases haven't even unlocked), demanding the removal of positionals, or complaining that they don't do more damage than melee while playing at half the APM while at range.

Melee mains in here mostly just want to preserve the gameplay and skill optimization that currently exist on their chosen jobs so that they can keep fights engaging even after a clear. You can also advocate for the more engaging gameplay on your preferred job as well, but don't drag others down by trying to remove optimization from other players' jobs. It's genuinely detrimental to the state of the game.

I am a supporter of preserving optimization and would never try to remove optimization from the game. Stormblood will always be the perfect balance to me when it comes to not being overly difficult that drives away the players that they want to preserve while still having fun jobs for the more hardcore players.

Its also mainly not about strictly doing more, its about the fact that a melee vastly underperforming can still bring more total Rdps than a SMN, RDM or physical ranged at times in recent years.

The APM thing however is just not entirely true unless you're talking about casters who may not have high APM but have to pre plan their positioning more than the other 2 DPS roles. I am quite sure however that BRD and MCH have higher APM than every job in the game other than NIN and VPR.

[rewd]

Higher APM= more difficult is surely an interesting opinion when BRD and MCH are some of the busiest jobs in the game lol

Are we gonna get someone else meleesplaining why melee are totally hard and complex compared to any other role?

[Galvuu]

Ironically enough you're revising history because BLM was a top tier DPS job the entirety of Shadowbringers, going neck and neck with SMN (Pre nerf) and never dropping out of the top 3.
You have to go back to pre Alphascape in Stormblood to find a time in which the job wasn't getting buffed for an extended period of time during a time in which it was struggling.

Even when it was "Weak" Last expansion it was just weak in that it wasn't a top 2 DPS job... It was just below some of the melee while being on par or above a couple of them without the gap ever being massive between it and the top dps job.

SMN was arguably the most powerful dps job in the history of the game in patches 5.2 and 5.3. It had the highest rdps- beating BLM consistently on all percentiles, if you check the data for Eden's Verse- with the added bonus of a rez and somewhat superior mobility compared to BLM at the time. Every top 10 fastest kill on any boss in Verse except 3 had a SMN in it (so 3 out of 40), the strongest presence out of any dps job. Of those that had a SMN, roughly 1/3 ran double caster, the rest was standard double melee.
In Gate, you have a 6-4 split between SMN and BLM, which seems to show they were comparable, but both were beneath melee during 5.05 through 5.1 (though technically roughly balanced against each other, even though SMN had a small rdps lead compared to BLM). Since everything BLM brings is damage, the moment another caster overtakes it or even matches it, it's arguably in a rough spot.

So, from 5.05 to 5.4, BLM was either more or less tied with SMN in terms of rdps, or consistently behind it, with SMN having some added utility and slightly better mobility. I don't know how this is congruent with "BLM gets massive buffs when it needs them", since those buffs usually only arrive during the last floors of the entire expansion. Fwiw, the situation in SB was mostly similar- although the difference is that SMN and BLM synergized quite well back then, so when BLM got its buffs in 4.4, double caster could actually compete with double melee, and both comps had equal presence in the fastest kills (in fact, it was a roughly three-way split between double melee, double caster and triple melee).

Not that this aside matters for the topic, which I don't exactly agree to begin with. It's definitely shaping up to be a tier where melee uptime isn't free in the slightest.

[remiff]

Honestly, I don't think the gap between melee and ranged/caster DPS should be that significant, but I don't think melee are as favored in Dawntrail as they were in Endwalker.

The hitboxes have been drastically reduced, and some mechanics are quite annoying for melee, so they have much more potential to lose uptime than before.
We need to wait for the stats from the savage fights to really be sure of how melee compare to ranged jobs. A few dungeons and 2 extremes are not enough to judge.

In a way, melee should have more DPS than ranged DPS, but yes, the gap should be slightly reduced.

[CrystalAurora]

Honestly, I don't think the gap between melee and ranged/caster DPS should be that significant, but I don't think melee are as favored in Dawntrail as they were in Endwalker.

The hitboxes have been drastically reduced, and some mechanics are quite annoying for melee, so they have much more potential to lose uptime than before.
We need to wait for the stats from the savage fights to really be sure of how melee compare to ranged jobs. A few dungeons and 2 extremes are not enough to judge.

In a way, melee should have more DPS than ranged DPS, but yes, the gap should be slightly reduced.

I would like to believe this but players will always find melee uptime strategies that end up with melee still having 99% and above uptime. Lets also not forget that melee jobs like VPR and NIN have ranged GCDs in their kit that they can store for such scenarios. VPR being the worst offender of this being able to store up to 3 ranged GCDS in which the oGCDS also have the same 20y range and result in no real DPS loss. So if there is ever a fight that forces you to peel off consistently throughout what you will actually see is that a job like VPR becomes significantly better than most of the other jobs in the game.

I can bet however that VPR would never ever be taxed in any kind of way because its a Melee DPS even if it has no downtime.

[rewd]

I would like to believe this but players will always find melee uptime strategies that end up with melee still having 99% and above uptime. Lets also not forget that melee jobs like VPR and NIN have ranged GCDs in their kit that they can store for such scenarios. VPR being the worst offender of this being able to store up to 3 ranged GCDS in which the oGCDS also have the same 20y range and result in no real DPS loss. So if there is ever a fight that forces you to peel off consistently throughout what you will actually see is that a job like VPR becomes significantly better than most of the other jobs in the game.

I can bet however that VPR would never ever be taxed in any kind of way because its a Melee DPS even if it has no downtime.

Not only ranged GCDs, but with a massive recast (3.5s).

[W00by]

Chiming in on the Viper/Ninja thing, although they can disconnect very easily compared to other melees, there's still Auto Attacks to consider. Swiftscale and Nin's haste decrease the auto attack timer by a significant margin. If a Viper just does triple Uncoiled Fury without being in melee range, they keep their GCD rolling, but they do lose uptime on autos. In that case, the Viper would lose around 400 or 500 potency from the missed autos. It seems small but worth trying to stick to the boss even if you are using UF.

That said, I agree with most other things in this thread. I had to quit RDM when I was doing Anabaseios in PF because I was so tired of underperforming melee doing, like, 2k more DPS than me while I was fighting my heart out. Judging by PCT, it might be the Resurrection keeping RDM and SMN down, but BLM isn't doing so hot right now either.

And Aiming players, rest in peace. They need to do something for that role stat or there will be a huge shortage in Arcadion.

[Laerune]

I was planning maining BLM or PCT, then I saw how much we need the to move and went SMN, might go VPR.