Their concern is completely valid. True melee in this game is really bad, facetanking only works for specific weapons that can kill the boss quickly enough. Good luck facetanking Skeletron Prime with a Phasesaber. And it's not as if tanking is reserved for true melee, in fact I'd argue that trying to use certain true melee weapons on certain bosses and events will get you killed a lot easier than having a defensive ranger build.
Those few times where a Ranger weapon is preferred for facetanking are outliers and nowadays it seems even Megashark + Crystal Bullets is slower than traditional Fetid for facetanking Plantera. Even something like Fiery Greatsword is a pretty good option to facetank Queen Bee because not only does it do solid close range DPS, but it kills all of the small bees coming out of her.
It doesn't matter if 90% of the options are horribly undertuned , those 10% remaining options and how some of them scale through Hardmode is enough to make "True melee" boringly strong considering how it functions in 1.4.3.
On normal difficulty maybe where having highest Defense stats doesn't mean you get to survive 1-2 more hits at best.
Everything I talk about assumes Master Mode.
People who claimed that "True melee is powerful" and were insistent that they know what they are talking about usually littered my Master worlds with their own graves.
That's because they don't know what they are doing. I myself have made entire videos dedicated to facetanking Master mode bosses in seconds, including taking 1-5 damage from most Master mode mech bosses attack and killing Master mode Plantera in 15 seconds with Fetid + Titanium (not even fully optimized). Not going to advertise here but you can look these up.
Funny claim considering that Terra Blade is not going to be a "true melee" after all and the fact that said melee changes weren't even released yet.
I'm not sure what you're trying to imply here and how it affects what I said? I have made multiple videos showcasing the "TerraWhip" strategy alone because Terra Blade's close-range DPS is indeed its biggest strength when you know what you are doing.
It sadly is. On Normal defense is good. On Expert it's very meh despite its buffed effect. On Master its just not worth it at all.
When you stack enough Defense on Master Mode you literally take 1 or single digit damage from mech boss attacks. 1-5 damage from Eye of Cthulhu, Brain of Cthulhu, Queen Bee and so on as well.
If you've looked at a video claiming that Defense is "not worth it" it almost surely was one of those where they show Duke Fishron who is an outlier when it comes to tanking his attacks. Even then, facetanking Duke Fishron on Master Mode is yet another thing I have done multiple times in a video I've made anyway.