I'm newish to game, and I can't figure out why you wouldn't just have a full ranged dps party. Ignoring the buff/utility of rogue, warrior, DK, feral druid, ret paladins, enhance shammy, why not just mass ranged dps? Obviously your tanks will be melee, but besides that?
You have better movement because of more time to react + you can deal more damage because you don't need to run around. In the Blood Queen phase, everyone can attack. I have not done ICC myself yet, but looking at all the boss mechanics, there doesn't seem to be a requirement for melee.
Can someone please explain why raids run a balance of melee and ranged (again, ignoring the buffs or utility melee classes bring that ranged classes cannot)?
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ICC - Why not just mass ranged dps?
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Most ranged can't or barely can dps if they have to move. It puts them at a disadvantage on fights like rotface and last phases of lady deathwhisper and professor putricide. Also on sindragosa unchained magic is a huge issue that limits their dps. That being said more ranged is often still brought because people want to limit the effect of people messing up mechanics where people have to spread out so its done out of laziness really especially in pugs. On BQL i'd hardly call it an advantage, most ranged have to pop defensive cds or heal themselves in air phase. Also to keep in mind if you had a ranged-heavy guild you wouldn't be able to do Ruby Sanctum because half the raid has to be inside which is usually all melee who are continously moving.
Edited: May 25, 2020
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This is only half-true. Melees can keep hitting while moving, but moving as a caster is generally a bigger dps loss since you can only use gcds while moving.you can deal more damage because you don't need to run around."
Now, an important thing to consider is space. Melees tend to consume 'less' space because they're stacked together. Ranged dps tend to be more spread out in most fights to maximize DPS. This is due to the existence of mechanics like Vile Gas. A rdps-heavy raid would get HUGE dps loss with that mechanic because more people would have to move/get hit etc.
Another aspect is cleave. Melees tend to have pretty damaging AoEs in their main rotation, making them excellent versus mobs. Rangeds' AoEs generally have a separate rotation and would negatively impact their single-target DPS when used.
Above all however, there is no basis to assume that melees have less DPS compared to ranged. Aside from fire mage, MM hunter and possibly Affliction warlocks, melees tend to dominate a bit more on the DPS charts due to mob cleave + Shadowmourne being a thing (ofc, not considering personal skill).
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Hmm... so just to confirm, a close to 50/50 melee ranged split is not a REQUIREMENT to complete ICC or RS 25M HC? Like you could have a really ranged heavy guild (at cost of dps) but still do all the things melee needs to do like hop into the portal for RS?
And for the sindrogosa, just mass marksmanship hunters?
Also, on the flip side, if melee has all these advantages, why not just mass fury warriors, ret paladins, and unholy DKs? (since for the BQL, people are popping their defensive CDs and not having the change to dps that much anyways)
These are really noob questions, but I was hoping someone could educate me on the topic!
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I typically form my LoD raids as 2 tank / 4 heal / 8 melee / 11 ranged. RS25 HC should have an extra tank for outside adds.
The reason you dont stack a melee heavy raid is because of a couple things:
First, plenty of fights will see extra raid damage by having so many people stacked on top of one another (LDW,DBS,Rot,Fest,BPC,BQL,LK).
Second, you'll see a dps loss compared to a split group on certain fights because of all the movement that melee have to do to attack another target or avoid mechanics (Marrow,LDW,PP,BPC,Sindy [+getting absolutely rekt inside frostmourne on LoD]).
Lastly, you would want to bring at least 3 casters to benefit the healers (Demo Lock Spellpower, Boomkin Spellcrit, Mage Int).Edited: May 25, 2020
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It's more like both types of DPS have their own advantages, therefore it's generally counterproductive to lean *too* much towards one or the other. As in, you're probably only making things harder for yourself unnecessarily.
For example, ranged dps are excellent for focusing down targets as they don't need to move as much - e.g. Blood Prince Council, Lich King Val'kyrs and Frostmourne Chamber spirits
To clarify on the 'requirement' thing, the only 'hard' requirements as far as I know happen during Festergut (Vile Gas), BPC (Kinetic Bombs) and LK (Chamber spirits), all of which necessitates the use of ranged DPS. Other than that, it's a 'soft' requirement, aka having too many melees or ranged can hamper your raid enough that there's not enough DPS to do stuff, or something along those lines.Edited: May 25, 2020
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Nothing is a requirement technically but if u wanna go slow go for it. Throughout cata for example there was a guy clearing raids like dragon soul heroic with 25 DKs on youtube.
Edited: May 25, 2020
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You can and its legit way to play. Many guilds have went 1 demo 1 boomy/tank/heal / hunter and rogue and 15 mages raids. Its just difficult to get 15 geared mages at the same time and you can do it like once a week. Talks about space are not really true except for hunter cuz he needs range to shoot. Most rdps doesnt need to move in order to dps so its bs talk. You have insane aoe and unchained magic can be ice blocked. So its legit and good setup but its hard to get so many mages in one group. Theres no downside of it on any boss in Icc. In rs its impossible.
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