Thread: Melee ineffective in 7.1 Frontlines

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).