Blizzard vs. Melee -- Showdown in Ulduar?

Throughout my raiding career, a certain mindset always seems to prevail regardless of instance or level of progression. These are things I hear almost every raid night, at least until we have something on farm:

"This [boss/trash] is so melee-unfriendly!"
"Wow, Blizzard really hates melee."
"QQ moar, melee! Blizzard hates you!"

And you know, at first I kind of agreed, and I let myself wallow in this anti-melee bias (which, you know, considering I am a melee dpser was probably not too healthy). It was especially noticeable when my guild experienced Zul'jin and only allowed one melee dpser while we were learning, or when we got to Leotheras and melee hardly had any dps time at all, or when we moved into TK and trash owned the entire melee group pretty consistently, or how it's so common to have trash/bosses have some sort of whirlwind at some point during the pull or fight. Yeah, I was annoyed as much as any other melee dpser -- I still am pretty frequently, if only because "oh yay... another whirlwind..." just gets so old after the first hundred times you've seen it.

Melee has to constantly be watching out for these kinds of things, because if you don't notice a whirlwind as soon as it goes off, you're dead. People make fun of you as they rez you. You vow to do better next time. Your hate makes you stronger. (This is actually the line my guild leader used after our attempts at Deconstructor, but I'm posting it here if only because there's more truth to it than he may have realized.) Reaction time makes a huge difference between life and death, and this is something we have always had to deal with in almost every pull in higher-progression instances. I'm not discrediting ranged dps -- they've had their fair share of ranged-only "ohshi-- move now" fights (e.g. Void Reaver), but for the most part they get to be relatively comfortable as far away from the enemy (and its whirlwinds or AoE explosions or whatever) as possible. Not that I have ever been bitter about this or anything. >>

Anyway, after the first couple weeks in Ulduar, I realized something, and for once I think other people noticed it too. This "melee hate" used to make me feel ridiculed, slighted, and even offended by a perceived neglect of melee-dps-friendly fights in general. When Ulduar was released and it was our first time in, melee was instantaneously owned by Deconstructor trash (and Ignis trash and Freya trash and Antechamber trash...). I figured that this was no different from any other raid instance. But despite taking dirt-naps a lot more frequently than I ever had in Naxx, I was having a really good time.

And after getting rezzed for the nth time, I realized that perhaps over the course of my raiding career, I had actually started to really, really crave the melee challenge. It was like a dare, and not one of the pansy "Truth or Dare"-type dares, but more of a "super-duper-quadruple-extra-dare" -- the kind you really just can't refuse, even if you know it's a completely stupid thing to do. I mean really, who in their right mind sees a mob that they know whirlwinds or explodes and says to themself, "Fck yeah, I'm running in there and will die, but I gotta get me some of that!"

Melee dps is not just about dps. Sure, your rotation is important, but it's also the last thing to be concerned about. Melee dps is about acute reaction time, swift movement, and awareness (knowing both your immediate surroundings and any potential escape paths should something go wrong or the thing you're fighting explode). It's about knowing all your "oh shit" buttons and not being afraid to use them, because if you don't, you'll be completely dead within a split second. To add to this, my new pride and joy has come from the Assembly of Iron (and more recently, General Vezax) and my ability to interrupt Chain Lightning/Lightning Whirl and Searing Flames. We've only attempted Vezax about five times, but I seriously love this fight. It's always a challenge to see how many interrupts I can get, how well I can budget my energy and GCDs (and combo points for stunning), and still take as little damage as possible while maintaining a decent amount of dps. Interrupting is something I used to hate and get extremely nervous about in BC (I was never a primary interrupter for Reliquary of Souls in BT, for example), and now I find myself looking forward to interrupt-intensive fights. Vezax in particular has shown a very clear distinction between "seasoned" melee interruptors and "newbie" melee interrupters (lol former-hunter-and-now-DK says interrupt wut?). In fact, the ability to maintain consistent interrupts is what ultimately kept me playing my rogue as my main instead of switching to my feral druid.

Funny how that happens.

I'm not writing this to discredit ranged dps -- I just want to state that again, because it's important. Every raid member needs to be able to have good reaction time and be able to move out of bad stuff.

But nothing has been able to excite me as much as melee. Most of the time, I even find tanking and healing relatively dull in comparison. I feel all-powerful as melee because if I die, 90% of the time it's my fault, and I can own up to that because I am in charge of myself. I can make it not happen next time, because I am in control of how much attention I am paying to the ground or cast bars or whatever multitude of things might be trying to kill me. I'll let people think Blizzard hates melee, but secretly I think Blizzard knows what it's doing. Some people like to stand far away and cast. And some people like to be up in a mob's face, jumping around and shouting, "C'mon is that the best you can do?! Ahahaha!"

So you know what I have to say? Bring it, Blizz. Throw me your super-duper-quadruple-extra-dares. I'm a big girl. I can take whatever you dish out, and I'll kick your ass right back.