Are most Ranged DPS specs too complicated, overdesigned or no longer fun?

Community General Discussion
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So we were doing H Grimtotem yesterday, we get the 2 stackable things. I admit, I’m not really paying attention - just on cruise control. We’re very relaxed at this point in the tier on most fights, even H Raz at this point. The Mage gets the stack, I join him, and we both explode.

I then realize we’re the only 2 in the stack because we’re basically the only two Ranged DPS left in the raid.

Our raid is filled with people no longer playing ranged mains or not rerolling them - Ret pallys and DKs make up the lion’s share. People will dabble with a Warlock, but inevitably show up with a Ret instead. Had a few others also try Shadow as well - they’d finish with less than half my damage though their ilvl was within 10 because - y’know - they haven’t spent months getting down our 21-24 button rotation and banking gear 10-15 ilvls higher because it doesn’t have haste.

Yet when they show up with a melee spec, one guy playfully ribs: “Yeah, I’m doing as much DPS as Barrison with 20 ilvls lower”. Guy’s playing a Ret for his 1st or 2nd week, very little experience.

I’m not the best Shadow Priest player, but I’ve puzzled out our mess of a rotation well enough to get Keystone Master and parse purple on Heroic Raids occasion… so I think it’s fair to say I’m probably better than the average WoW Shadow Priest… and the sad reality is, as complicated as Shadow is, I know it’s not the most complicated Ranged DPS spec somehow.

Meanwhile I’m leveling my Demon Hunter. I don’t really think that needs a punch line when it comes to complexity. And this is the first time I’m seriously playing an alt because I have not had the mental energy to reroll one - I spent so long trying to figure out the absolute mess that is Shadow, that once I finally got comfortable and could parse usually in the top ten out of about 18 (all melee above me on all fights but Council)… the thought of rerolling just fills me with dread/sunken cost.

Has Blizzard so throughly overdesigned most Ranged DPS classes that they’ve become too complicated for too little reward and are just not as fun as others? My raid started with an equal split of ranged and melee and now we’re down to 2 ranged DPS for a raid of about 15. And anyone who tries raiding as a ranged character inevitably goes back to melee.

Anyone else noticing the same thing? I get my experiences at 100% ancedotal, totally open to others coming in with the ranged DPS specs, saying their entire raid rerolled ranged for 10.0.7, and saying how they smoke the melee and how I’m just bad… that’s cool. But I’ve played a very long time and I’ve never noticed this sort of thing happening before. If anything, people graduated toward Ranged due to things like “melee unfriendliness”.

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I’m a returning player so I’m not quite sure if this is an accurate pov, but it seems that the fact of having cast times is a huge disadvantage when there is so much to move around.

It’s doable, indeed, but certainly an added layer of stress when compared to other classes that can perform their rotation on the run without consequence.

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I don’t have a problem with shadow’s 750 interacting procs and overcapping insanity. I have a problem with the fact that they all tend to hit together, once you’ve gotten dots rolling and some mind blasts out. This situation is especially frustrating in PvP.

That, and C’thun tendrils need to proc more. I don’t care if they nerf the damage, just give me my tentacles.

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There’s nothing complicated about bm hunter or devastation evoker

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In my opinion, DF S1 has gone the other direction and ramped up the “ranged unfriendliness.” There are simply too many movement requirements in boss fights/M+ dungeons for ranged specs to stand in place long enough to really enjoy their rotation.

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I can only speak on a hyper casual view of mages, since I barely play alts enough to understand them. What I do know is that I don’t want to deal with Rune of Power on top of mechanics when (at least from what I can see), most other classes don’t have to talent into a mobility inhibitor for sometimes-damage when others, mainly the melee, look a lot more “free” when they play.

Except for paladins, I suppose, since I remember hearing a ton of negative feedback about requiring Consecration for stuff. I figure that’s in the same spirit of frustration.

I’m sure it’s just because I suck but sometimes it does feel like mage is umbrella’d by some of its own talent options. I don’t like arcane having more cooldowns than rotational buttons that all serve the purpose of being used together, and button mashing due to extreme haste values. So even though I still enjoy the base rotations of the three specs, there’s actually no viable build that’s actually fun for me. So it’s easier not to do group content at all than stress myself out, even though I keep trying to work up the enthusiasm to do raids or dungeons each time a patch comes out.

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I think the devs that actually do play the game are playing melee and don’t know what to do for rdps and healers. There’s a whole lot of spaghetti flying at the walls in terms of balance.

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Demos NP / Demonbolt pure ST build not only performed horribly damage wise, but also made me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon.

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I’m trying to level a shadow priest right now. I have always liked the fantasy of the class but it seems a hot mess. I don’t know how you guys do it end game and play it well.

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I’ve bern playing WL since I started in late BC, but now I switched to Warrior bc I got bored of my lock.

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See what you meed to do OP is to let your pure hatred and disgust for what theyve done to us fuel you to even greater dps. We are the sith, let the anger flow!

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This is an over all issue with heavy movement fights. its that melee get away with the fights while ranged get heavy punished for having cast times.

I actually switched from Affliction Warlock to Assassin Rogue because i want to have a melee for certain fights because they have less requires to meet over ranged.

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The game isn’t as fun to play if you can’t ever cast a spell because you have to be moving all of the time.

As a melee the concept of standing place for 2 or 3 seconds while you cast is foreign, and Blizzard makes it less and less fun to play a ranged class with cast times. Instant abilities are fine…but casting is horrible.

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The talent tree design being over bloated with active abilities is mostly to blame

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At least buy him dinner first, sheesh.

I mean, it’d be a problem if your ranged classes were also more mobile than the melee classes.

I think the issue is less that there isn’t simple ranged class specs- because there are- but instead that the most difficult ranged class specs are ridiculous.

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I mean mobility-inhibited compared to a mage that doesn’t spec Rune of Power.

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Lots of obnoxious mechanics for casters in df, so far. It has been considerably more fun just hopping on my war and zugging.

I’d consider swapping mains from caster to melee in s2, but our raid is pretty much all melee or bm hunters already.

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Range class itself isn’t hard is you have to dodge all the avoidable AoE and move a lot during mid cast and always be moving due to mechancis. That’s what playing range hard this expansion. As with melee or BM hunter you can keep on attacking on the move.

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S1 raid and M+ have a lot of “you need to dodge this”. It feels like more then we’ve had in a while.

Ranged is just more work. You get some advantages/payoff for that work, especially in raid, but it’s there.

Also Mages seem to be in a bad place, that’s a big chunk of ranged players (3 specs).

That being said, I mostly play ranged now so who knows.

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Give melee classes a cast time for all their abilities

:dracthyr_hehe_animated:

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