Hey all, I’m a melee main and have been for a while. I play 2 warriors, prot pally, unholy dk, and a ww monk. I dabbled with warlock in the past but never got past level 20 or so. The only other ranged class I have experience with is bm hunter.
What are some tips for a longtime melee player to play a clothie for the first time? Ngl I’m scared when mobs charge at me. I dot, shield, and run. Seems to work well at low levels, but idk if that transitions well to higher level play.
Distance is your friend use it wisely.
armor class means absolutely nothing in modern wow
I would differ people have proven there is a difference and surprisingly cloth is pretty durable and at time better than metal yet, you do have a point since this is all make believe.
A lot of mobs, even elites, you can face tank for quite a while. You have shield, VE, a short cast heal, etc, and when those fail, you can still fear or stun. Take Body and Soul and Angelic Feather and get used to placing feathers. Dispersion is a life saver.
Now, when players are up your butt, that’s a different story. Gotta be wily. Remember that fade can remove snares. Against certain classes, you’re probably gonna need help. I dunno, I’m not the best shadow PvPer.
Also, spawning C’thun tentacles makes me happy.
Abort and go back to melee while you still can. Dragonflight has been designed to be completely anti-caster.
Being a clothie means nothing anymore.
Warlocks are more sturdy than DK’s.
Welcome to WoW.
Ranged dps is mostly easier than melee dps; you have a lot more time to dodge and there is far less spell clutter. The flip side is that rotations are more complex and you have cast times.
Just follow the basic rule: Always be casting.
I play like its 1978 Gygax rules… anything hits and you die. When I pull boss aggro I have to change my robe. It’s awkward.
Its been nerfed, but still means something. just look at your character sheet ffs.
@OP Starting your damage rotation at max range helps a lot when first getting used to a ranged class, that way you minimize the damage you take. it gets a lot easier the more you play, but you will still feel weaker than your melee because of the physical damage from melee mobs
This is just an alt, I’m sticking my my melee mains
Really? I find my mage to be much squishier than my plate classes…
Every rdps has to learn how to kite, if you can be attacking from a distance and taking no damage, you should do it! That will help you. For mdps, it doesn’t usually make sense to kite because that will put them out of range of their own attacks. So mdps kits are built around surviving, and classes which can be tanks (five of these are only mdps) can usually have more survivability because they have tank talents in their general class talent tree.
This is a complete lie in Dragonflight. Melee is far easier as they have less overall mechanics to deal with, and the ones they have to avoid they can mostly sidestep while maintaining their DPS rotation.
Casters have to dodge everything, including 101 different frontals, swirlies, beams and pullin / pullout emchanics. This movement heavily punishes them as they do zero DPS while continually moving.
Oh yeah and learn how to dance ,omg, as a range I never had to move so much now,three steps back two forward do the shimmy .
The biggest difference between Ranged and Melee is ranged need to know what is going to happen, and melee need to be more reactive to what is actively happening.
A DK can DPS whilst avoiding stuff. A Mage will have a much harder time. That is why you pre-position, anticipate what is going to happen.
A simple mechanic is Terros, 2nd boss in the current raid. He has an “energy bar” that when fills up to 100 will make him AOE a quarter of the room. For a DK, this isn’t an issue, you’ll still do your rotation as normal you’ll just shuffle to the side while doing so. You’re in melee range too, so you have less distance to traverse.
For an Arcane Mage, you need to note the energy bar, if it’s getting close to 100 you need to be thinking about your escape route. Additionally, you need to time your CDs.
If you dropped Rune of Power and starting bursting when he has 96 energy, you’ve messed up big time because for the next 5 seconds you’re going to be running away.
But if you time it and initiate your burst at 5 energy? You’re good to go.
If you’re a melee main but want to dabble in Ranged, I’d highly recommend BM.
Warlocks have always been the tanky caster, that’s nothing new
To add insult to injury, the best phial for some ranged specs is phial of static empowerment, and you lose the benefit every time you move, until it builds back up (and then you have to move again).
Melee have had the cushy life since BFA but they just refuse to admit it because to them being Ranged is “cheating”.
Some raid encounters are harder on melee. Some are harder on Ranged.
But in M+ Melee have it better. There’s a reason the top specs are mostly Melee.
For now.
Come to the dark side