As a person who mains monk (for the most part), I'm going to have to disagree entirely with the idea that melee suck in XIV. Up until patch 2.1 (and even after) I mained a monk in our binding coil static. Turns 1~5. I can safely say without a doubt that 95% of the time, I topped our DPS charts against equally geared and equally skilled DD. Our old setup used to be WHM, SCH, PLD, PLD, BLM, SMN, MNK, BRD. My Monk would easily top DPS on every single fight. Never had issues with dodging anything -- in fact, I felt more comfortable dodging as a melee. As a monk, no less, which suffers heavily from having to dodge due to the potential of a GL3 loss. The job just flows really nicely, and it's one I'm very in sync with. I've played it for months new in endgame, and it's one of those things where eventually you reach a point where you know a job inside and out. Where you can do it's rotation in your sleep flawlessly and optimize your DPS down to a decimal. ...More or less, anyways. Haha.
Suffice it to say, melee DD in this game does not suck. It's incredibly potent if you play them properly. Maybe I'm just lucky and don't have the latency some people say they do, but I never, ever have issues dodging as a melee or a tank for that matter.
That being said! With 2.1's changes to Warriors, I wound up taking over tank duty from one of our tanks as a Warrior. Our new setup turned to WHM, SCH, BLM, BLM, DRG, BRD, WAR, PLD. We did our usual monday turns 1~4 run with this new setup on our first night and didn't wipe once. Might have been the norm for our old group static, as we'd 1-4 in like 50 minutes, but I absolutely expected some roughness with half of us changing jobs. The dragoon? Did amazing numbers, even with his lack of experience in coil on that job (he was a summoner before) and a lack of gear compared to the rest of our DD. I'd like to think that speaks enough for the playability of the job. Sure, he'd practiced some outside of coil, but when it came to executing it in the actual encounters he had absolutely no issues going from a geared ranged DD to a slightly under geared melee DD.
TL;DR - Dragoon and Monk are both very, very good DD. It's just a matter of knowing proper itemization for your job, proper rotation, and executing it flawlessly alongside whatever boss mechanics you're rolling against.
Suffice it to say, melee DD in this game does not suck. It's incredibly potent if you play them properly. Maybe I'm just lucky and don't have the latency some people say they do, but I never, ever have issues dodging as a melee or a tank for that matter.
That being said! With 2.1's changes to Warriors, I wound up taking over tank duty from one of our tanks as a Warrior. Our new setup turned to WHM, SCH, BLM, BLM, DRG, BRD, WAR, PLD. We did our usual monday turns 1~4 run with this new setup on our first night and didn't wipe once. Might have been the norm for our old group static, as we'd 1-4 in like 50 minutes, but I absolutely expected some roughness with half of us changing jobs. The dragoon? Did amazing numbers, even with his lack of experience in coil on that job (he was a summoner before) and a lack of gear compared to the rest of our DD. I'd like to think that speaks enough for the playability of the job. Sure, he'd practiced some outside of coil, but when it came to executing it in the actual encounters he had absolutely no issues going from a geared ranged DD to a slightly under geared melee DD.
TL;DR - Dragoon and Monk are both very, very good DD. It's just a matter of knowing proper itemization for your job, proper rotation, and executing it flawlessly alongside whatever boss mechanics you're rolling against.
![[Image: 7Ho5y7x.png]](http://i.imgur.com/7Ho5y7x.png)
