Thread: Melee ineffective in 7.1 Frontlines

Personally, I don't like balancing that greatly favours one type of job over another. OP may have (or may not, to be fair) that we've be living through a period when melee had a relatively easy life, so it's normal to be unhappy when the balance swings the other way. has it swung too far, to favour ranged- or is it that to play a melee, you need the support of the rest of your team- as you should and you can't just yolo your way and take on 5 ranged even if they hit their buttons? Edit - btw, NOT saying that OP was doing that, I've just seen too many being able to do that.

Given Square's lest than stellar balancing, I would agree, they may have adjusted a bit too far in favour of ranged, however melee doesn't equal invulnerable if they want to play that role of "we wade into the forefront, we protect the weak/fragile" - then a good half of them should learn to peel/ coordinate as a melee should- with their healers/ranged- which at half of them don't. Being generous there.

Originally Posted by IceEyes

I disagree with the thesis that it only happened after 7.1

The vast majority of players in any role in FL play extremely carelessly and put minimal effort into winning. Most have always preferred ranged combat because they are safer, and melee classes like Samurai or Monk have always suffered in such meaningless wall-to-wall firefights.

The Dragoon rotation has not changed at all and even became slightly better. If we consider tank roles, Gunbreaker and Paladin have always been underdogs in FL due to the obvious advantages of Warrior and Dark Knight.

Also nothing changing with mindless DRKs who jumped into the crowd alone and died without any effect and without the support of allies (which, in principle, is true for almost any melee job).

The meta in FL is built around a burst of large control and AoE damage in a short time. If that not happend then...

... No matter what class you play, it's not fun and just boils down to boring throwing range AoE an each other if one or more sides don't have players willing to shape the game strategy and lead the others.

The FL maps needs to be changed completely. Make players move in smaller groups (preferably 8 people). More points of interest. In such conditions, the jobs like monk and pal will feel much better than 24/24/24.

I'd agree that ranged jobs have always been more popular amongst those in FL with little commitment and/or skill. The problem in 7.1 is you can play ranged poorly, and still completely throttle melee/tank. What also seems to be happening is that it's driving the better players away from melee/tank, thereby compounding the problem through the increasing imbalance in numbers.

Maybe we should take a page out of the book of the Healers Union and everyone switch to ranged. I wonder if SE would even notice?

Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Maybe we should take a page out of the book of the Healers Union and everyone switch to ranged. I wonder if SE would even notice?

No reason they wouldn't notice. FL has gone through a soft range meta a couple of times in the past, and that's when they decided to introduce innate damage resistances, either in late SB or ShB, I don't remember, which shifted the meta full on melees and has remained as such until 7.1. The tragedy of FLs before 7.1 is that ranged was a forgiving, relatively safe pick for casual players, but at the same time so squishy that it actually made them into prime targets all the time, which was in reality just the illusion of safety. Melees were the actual meta jobs and literally unkillable under the hands of good players (or just decent players for ranged melees like DRG or NIN).

melees are a freaking pest in CC

they can disrupt a team very easily if handled properly, i have done it and others have done it to my team

however, I admit that I have been to FL and it's utter madness, even more than it was before!

I do prefer CC these days...

Can't do anything in Frontlines as melee without being slowed by an Astrologian who wasn't even targeting you.

I find it too rough that DRG deals -20% with all actions in FL. This negative modifier should apply to the LB only, particularly considering its longer recharge time.

I also don't see the point of the new Drakesbane. You barely ever use it because the basic combo turns into both Heavens' Thrust and Starcross, making the combo break quite often while bursting.

Admittedly I haven't played much fl this patch because I'm tired of trying 5X as hard on pld only to do something like 800K damage, and I'm trying (and failing) to learn cc, but as a regular player in 7.0, I'm a bit surprised at the narrative that it was such a melee dominated meta. I think it's dangerous to suggest so, as it implies a correction needed to be done based on melee-ranged lines rather than on an individual job basis. I don't think ranged were at that much of a disadvantage in 7.0, and I think it's a bit revisionist to say that the meta was dominated by melee when astro was still an absolute menace back then. There were outliers in the form of drk and brd that certainly contributed to the narrative, but most ranged were able to effectively contribute as much as most melees. Smn and Blm were able to hit the two million damage mark easier than any melee, whm was a master of disruption with poly and I've seen some disgusting things being done with its lb, dnc probably had the most unfair ability in the game with its lb, and sch stacks despite being a bit of a meme were the only things that could generate more aggro than Olivia Lugria.
As for good melee players being un-killable, I'd argue that they often died more than bad melee players. A good melee player would leverage their increased survivability as much as possible and put themselves in more dangerous positions to make their team safer and use their kit to its fullest potential. A bad melee on the other hand would keep to their backline, ignore their melee abilities, and run at the first sight of danger. Yeah, they wouldn't die, but they also wouldn't do any damage and their team would probably rack up more deaths instead. I think only ninja really allowed for a true ranged playstyle while effectively using its kit, but while it excelled with single target and getting kills on its own, I wouldn't call it much of a meta pick because it didn't have anything special when it came to aoe.

Originally Posted by DolphinsFan

Admittedly I haven't played much fl this patch because I'm tired of trying 5X as hard on pld only to do something like 800K damage, and I'm trying (and failing) to learn cc, but as a regular player in 7.0, I'm a bit surprised at the narrative that it was such a melee dominated meta. I think it's dangerous to suggest so, as it implies a correction needed to be done based on melee-ranged lines rather than on an individual job basis. I don't think ranged were at that much of a disadvantage in 7.0, and I think it's a bit revisionist to say that the meta was dominated by melee when astro was still an absolute menace back then. There were outliers in the form of drk and brd that certainly contributed to the narrative, but most ranged were able to effectively contribute as much as most melees. Smn and Blm were able to hit the two million damage mark easier than any melee, whm was a master of disruption with poly and I've seen some disgusting things being done with its lb, dnc probably had the most unfair ability in the game with its lb, and sch stacks despite being a bit of a meme were the only things that could generate more aggro than Olivia Lugria.
As for good melee players being un-killable, I'd argue that they often died more than bad melee players. A good melee player would leverage their increased survivability as much as possible and put themselves in more dangerous positions to make their team safer and use their kit to its fullest potential. A bad melee on the other hand would keep to their backline, ignore their melee abilities, and run at the first sight of danger. Yeah, they wouldn't die, but they also wouldn't do any damage and their team would probably rack up more deaths instead. I think only ninja really allowed for a true ranged playstyle while effectively using its kit, but while it excelled with single target and getting kills on its own, I wouldn't call it much of a meta pick because it didn't have anything special when it came to aoe.

Isn't 800k pretty good on PLD though? I would think it is at least for solo queueing. I'd suggest it's in better shape than WAR, since it's at least allowed on the front line during its invuln.

And talking of Olivia, I heard she's back and playing DRK. Don't know the stack comp, but she still racked up 69 assists apparently on Seal Rock.

I never left >.> was doing my grind to crystal in CC in considering going for top 300 this season.

I do think range defense could go back down just a little bit. Not all the way to pre 7.1.

The biggest hit for melee right now is 3 second purify.