I do recognize that those feats remove most ranged penalties, but you missed the two major disadvantages that they do not address (and which was largely my original point). Full cover and concealment. Depending on the frequency that those are encountered (and I would argue that any campaign that uses realistic encounter ranges should also have plenty of cover and concealment available) ranged attacks will be better or worse off.
Melee often doesn't have to deal with these factors because one can often circumvent them much more easily at point-blank range than from hundreds of feet away. Crossbow Expert does allow an archer to fight at point blank range, but at that point you're just a slightly weaker melee character (because melee will have either better AC or bigger damage dice). Plus, if you're readying actions to shoot the enemies if they poke their head out from behind cover, you're advancing at half the speed of the melee.
It depends on how far away the enemy is. Full cover usually benefits both ways creating a standoff usually requiring ready actions. One of the reasons I'm extremely happy ready doesn't allow a extra attacks creating an even more powerful advantage for ranged.
The melee can run up in the face of the enemy, then the ranged guy just stands behind the melee gaining cover and attacking the opponent without taking much, if any, damage.
If we're talking Stealth, I would argue that the rogue is king. Not only do they get abilities that virtually guarantee they'll never fail, but sneak attack is devastating when used in conjunction with surprise (particularly for an assassin). Whenever my rogue player solo'd (usually with an NPC henchman), the rogue tried to sneak up on everything (and typically succeeded). It was a slaughter. Ironically, it was an ambush of sorts (summoning trap) that got her in the end. But I will grant you that Stealth is nice for ranged attackers, since they don't have to get as close.
Sure, rogue is the king of stealth. A dex-based fighter can stealth quite effectively as well with many creatures not having perception. A rogue can attack from range during the surprise round, though he is kind of screwed with no melee after that unless he has easy access to
invisibility or a visual range advantage. I've been thinking of making a warlock/rogue with Devilvision and darkness for fun.
That's heavily situational. In a dungeon crawl, most encounters will occur at ranges where the melee will be able to close immediately.
True. Those are the situations I was talking about where ranged stealthy attackers (including rogue) move through the dungeon taking things without being seen. We had our heavy armor wearer hang back a lot of the time, while our ranged stealthy guys eliminated entire rooms. We snuck up on an ogre and killed it before it got to attack. Stealthy monk with bow, stealthy wizard, and stealthy eldritch knight archer. The monk has started to fall behind on the ranged damage as we gain levels, but still adds some damage. I could use on my precious feats to pick up Sharpshooter for the monk to close the gap quite a bit. I have a different plan for my feats given I have to max wisdom and dexterity. I want to pick up mobility to see if it works as well with a monk.
If the enemy hides behind total cover while the melee closes, then the ranged can do nothing but move or wait.
They usually use ready actions with cover firing around corners when the enemy breaks cover.
Heck, I've played in campaigns (in multiple editions) where the average encounter distance was 30 feet. That DM felt that ranged attacks were too powerful, and so he started encounters at shorter distances to make them less so.
There was another DM where we'd spend 99% of our time in open plains (I guess he didn't like making up terrain). Ranged options were very strong in those games. A friend of mind played as a 3.5 halfling ranger with a riding dog in one of that DM's games, and he was basically an unstoppable killing machine.
Terrain makes it easier for melee to get into battle. Ranged are still effective in this edition in those circumstances with the two feats that eliminate the disadvantages.
In your campaign I have no doubt that range is more potent than melee. I've said as much in previous posts.
It will certainly be more true in campaigns which feature lots of flying enemies than campaigns which don't. However, I've known a number of DMs who would rather a dragon have an in-your-face beat down with the PCs rather than spend its time timidly skirmishing. From your comments, I understand you to be one of them (you just don't consider 5e dragons tough enough to do so without modification). In that type of campaign, ranged doesn't have any great advantage over melee in a dragon fight.
They have proven more powerful in both of our highest level campaigns. The ability to circumvent cover is huge. When I as a DM set up an ambush or just position a fight so casters are in the back so melee can't easily access them, I have to worry about the ranged attackers hammering the casters because anything less than full cover provides no bonus. The ranged attacker usually waits to hammer the casters creating a scenario where casters can't show their faces very well to manipulate combat. Unless I specifically build enemy ranged attackers with Sharpshooter, the enemy doesn't have the same advantage.
It's pretty annoying that a single feat like Sharpshooter removes the ability of the enemy to protect themselves using less than full cover or concealment, which can be as disadvantageous for them as it is for the PCs given the party can pop behind full cover. Melees have to pound through the wall of steel to get to a caster behind his martial protection, but not a ranged attacker. Even hiding behind castle walls or on higher ground provides no protection against ranged attackers, but creates problems for melee.
It's far easier to challenge melee as a DM than ranged because of the inherent limitations in melee combat. Sure, I can and have made a few fights where a melee has an easier time relative to ranged. Even those fights the melee has to stand toe to toe and take the damage. In 5E the best way to deal with damage is avoid it all together. It's not very hard to hit someone in this edition. You get a few bad hits and you can go down. My monk has fallen many times. Ranged get to avoid a lot of damage using less healing resources as well saving spell slots for other effects.
I don't think ranged > melee is universally true of 5e. Certainly, the DM doesn't have to let it be true. It will depend on a lot of factors that vary from campaign to campaign. Average encounter distance. The abundance of cover (especially full) and concealment. Magic items. The frequency of flying enemies. Whether encounters have open boundaries or closed (dungeon vs wilderness).
You like to use realistic encounter distances. Perfectly valid choice. But are you putting in a realistic amount of cover (including total cover) and concealment for melee and enemies to utilize? I'm skeptical, because an enemy behind total cover means little to no DPR for the ranged attacker. If the enemy pops out of cover to shoot, they can take their full attack and duck back behind total cover, while the ranged PC can take a single readied attack in retaliation. If the ranged of both sides just hide behind total cover in a stand off, its the melee that will decide the battle.
Yep. I use cover a lot. I have to so enemy casters can survive. If an enemy caster with a wall of martial protection doesn't have full cover, the Sharpshooter or Eldritch blasting warlock will kill him quickly. Full cover is an absolute necessity or the party will make mincemeat of them. At least full cover makes them take ready actions and slows down the damage. Melee still has to pound through the martial enemy wall. If I don't put that wall there, the ranged guy just pops around the corner, full attacks, then pops back around the corner. He's using full cover to his advantage as well. Then it becomes who can do damage faster, and that is usually the PCs.
The way they did mobility and feats makes ranged universally better than melee in 5E. If you disallow feats or at least disallow Sharpshooter and GWM, you will no problems. Everything is very closed to balanced at that point. Ranged will have an easier time with fliers, but fliers can still use partial cover. Damage is relatively balanced. You can move outside of bow distance to get disadvantage. No bonus damage. Sharpshooter is the main problem that throws everything out of whack by eliminating most of a ranged attackers disadvantages as well as a DM's means to protect against ranged attacking. Even GWM doesn't go that far. Crossbow Expert by itself is fine without Sharpshooter.
Dave did point out one other disadvantage. Low strength against strength check spells like
evard's or entangle. Grapple not so much because you can use Acrobatics to resist.
