Guild Wars 2

My issue is as some have mentioned, trademark attacks being rather subtle in some boss fights and it becomes a case of knowing the routine rather than surviving through instinct.

A good amount of those encounters you just listed can be melee’d once you get the hang of dodging the proper attacks.

Or, you know, just stay at range and never have to worry about it. The problem isn’t that melee is impossible, just that it takes way more effort, skill, and luck to survive it than staying at range does, for little to no practical advantage. The only reason to stay in melee is because you really really enjoy your melee weapons and don’t mind dying more often. You can always choose to restrict your potential by playing in a substandard way. That doesn’t indicate a state of balance.

But in the situation that it is a 1v1 and you are left with either melee or ranged, and you have to fend for yourself, I prefer melee weapons and am way better at handling 1v1 that way.

Yes, but dungeon encounters are rarely 1v1, and so 1v1 match-ups aren’t really relevant to discussions of weapon skills vs. dungeon balance. All I know is that I played a dagger/dagger Thief from 1-80, but as soon as I decided to tackle dungeons I moved almost entirely to Shortbow, and am far more survivable with it than when I pull out the daggers (which I use in some encounters, but many are far too risky for that).

In the case it is a 1v1 moment, it could be that you are the last survivor of your group on a boss nearly dead, or got ambushed by something while separated from your group.

Those are cases where you die, the party wipes, and they all have to respawn. Dungeon encounters are not balanced in such a way that they can reasonably be soloed. If something ambushes you while you’re split from the party (which should not happen), then you’re typically better off just running away (which is typically easier with ranged weapons), and regrouping with your team. Dungeon encounters just aren’t balanced for 1v1, they are balanced for at least 2-3 players concentrating fire on however many enemies there are. If there is one enemy, it’s 5 v 1. If there are five enemies, it’s 5 v 5, with all five players attacking as many of the five enemies as they can at a time.

why not use both ranged and melee?

Ranged > Melee is a well.. I will say its a myth but I have considered the theories as to why a large majority of people believe that.

Its all subjective to the enemies that you are fighting: They have different attacks for dealing with both ranged or melee players i.e Lupi charging down ranged weapon users. Watch them and you’ll learn or try and get into groups with braves like myself or Wethospu and watch how we manage ourselves upclose. Personally I find it generally a lot more fun to jump around your enemies like a ninja or duck under your shield every now and then compared to spamming your 1200 ranged weapon #1 skill afk like a total lamer. (N.B. for Rob #1, please more hate from mobs VS. 1200 range weapons specifically to eliminate that)

Its all about class mastery VS. knowledge of enemies. There are perfect skills for specific situations and these are the things you need to look for, whether those skills are on melee or ranged weapons.

N.B. for Rob #2: WTB More – “Dungeons are group play, but there are standout solo moments in them.”

The increased damage you do in melee more than makes up for how much more work you have to when you are in melee. This increases exponentially when fighting multiple mobs and ranged weapons lack the cleaving melee weapons have.

I think this can be summed up as:

Ranged: Easier, Less Damage
Melee: Harder, More Damage

Which seems perfectly reasonable.

GEOGRAPHIC LATENCY…
remember that when u talk about things “easy to dodge”.
And this comes from an eu player playing on an eu server (with a gaming connection).

its not an offline game

The problem isn’t that melee is impossible, just that it takes way more effort, skill, and luck to survive it than staying at range does, for little to no practical advantage.

Can i repeat myself about those 4war + 1 mesmo CoF speed run groups?
Talking about no practical advantage like you never saw 20+k HB swing?

GEOGRAPHIC LATENCY…

This i can partly agree. GW2 is very, very highly depends on connection quality. I was forced to feel this myself last 2 weeks while my ISP do repairs. That is not to say ranged doesn’t feel this problem. My main is engi and he still suffer much from bad connection.

I think this can be summed up as:

Ranged: Easier, Less Damage
Melee: Harder, More Damage

Which seems perfectly reasonable.

That may be true with some classes, I know my Thief does better up close than at a distance, but my Necro can do ungodly amounts of damage at medium range, well outside melee.

but my Necro can do ungodly amounts of damage

u a funny guy pic.

I did a HotW and during the Aldrus boss fight, ALL of my teammates, who were all medium/lights (one engi too) ran up to the boss and helped me melee it. it was so epic. they were fast and quick to move but still held their own easily without needing seemingly much support at all. It was a good eye opener and this was one of my best teams in a long time (1 heavy, 4 nons). I could of half leeched and they seemed to be able to do it.
IT IS POSSIBLE!

Most people range this fight and sit back and auto but this was a great reminder and lesson on how to play certain classes.

Minion of Vey.4398:

Have to chime in on people saying you can’t melee bloomhunger.

Not only can it be done, but it’s a lot easier than doing it ranged, because he casts far less AoE on you (and as long as you move to stay behind him, he won’t hit you with his fist). Plus you can keep picking up his own fallen branches and smacking him on the head with them, which just feels right.

The issue is that you need to kill the spirits, to avoid letting them buff him, and those spirits spawn pretty far from him, so at least 2 or 3 people need to be ranged, or you’ll waste a lot of time running to them and back into melee range.

I suspect the problem some people have with doing him as melee is they don’t actually stay in melee range. They stand far enough to have him fire ranged attacks at them, but so close that they have no time to react. Some bosses seem to fire ranged attacks even at players standing on top of them, but Bloomhunger doesn’t (or, at least, he fires significantly less at players in actual melee range).

Illiander.8049:

I think this can be summed up as:

Ranged: Easier, Less Damage
Melee: Harder, More Damage

I don’t think it can. I do more damage at range with my elementalist, ranger or engineer than I do in melee with my guardian. And, on my mesmer, I find it much easier to fight Kholer with two swords (melee) than with a scepter, staff or greatsword (ranged).

There is no one-size-fits-all rule. In most dungeons, using ranged weapons increases you chances of survival and allows you to attack the enemy 100% of the time, while melee players frequently need to move out of range. I think that makes sense, though, from a realism point of view. The benefit of having melee players is that they tend to be better at holding aggro and can block some attacks that would otherwise hit their teammates.

In other words, yes, melee players need to work a bit harder and sometimes end up doing less damage (because of the times when they need to move, and their attacks won’t hit), but having at least one melee player improves the party as a whole.

And if you have two or three, with some defensive / healing abilities, they can buff each other and make their lives a lot easier. Part of the added difficulty of playing melee is that you’re frequently alone in front of the boss, out of range of your own teammates’ boons, because they’re trying to keep as far as possible.

I do think that some enemies need to be changed, though. Namely, projectile attacks should always take approximately the same amount of time to reach their target, regardless of distance. If you’re fighting a boss in melee range (or just barely outside melee range) and the boss fires a projectile at you, you have no time to react.

Part of that problem is also related to the camera (as are so many issues in GW2). If you’re in melee range, often you can’t see projectiles being fired at all (because they are fired in an arc, off the top of your screen, while the bottom half of your screen is just showing useless ground behind your character). Allowing a wider vertical FoV and adjusting the camera target height (so you don’t have to aim down so much) would make it much easier to see those attacks while you’re in melee range.

But hey, whoever coded GW2’s camera was clearly a sadist, so my hopes aren’t too high that they’ll improve it.

The issue that I have with dungeons/fotm is that while it is possible to melee while you have your long CD’s and full edurance, once they are gone you’re left kiting the mob most of the time. Now I agree with what everyone else has said that it depends on your group, but this makes it much harder for pugs. I’m not in a massive guild therefore I have to pug a few fotm and most of the time I’m teamed up with 4/5 ranged leaving me the only melee. This means 90% of mobs will always target me over any other members of the group (Besides Mossman, he seems to only care about ranged classes) so when my damage migration is on CD, I’m left kiting the mob which is boring game play to me. I don’t like playing range, I’ve always been a melee class, range just bores me but with GW2 I feel like I’m forced into it.

I feel as though fights in fotm especailly their agony skills are simply anti-melee spells, most of them can be avoided by being out of range (So I see many melee characters stay ranged throughout the whole of those fights just to be on the safe side) which does give range a much higher advantage over melee. Especailly as mentioned to players that are not “masters of their class”.
I remember when one of my friends first reached lvl 10 in fotm and he said “lvl 10+ is basically kiting the boss to avoid agony”. Is this really the way Anet want it to be for people? Yes I’m melee and I stay melee even though it is harder that’s how I prefer to play, but for those players that have not quite mastered their class yet, have slight lag or don’t have the best reaction times to always avoid melee ranged damage you’re basically forcing them into playing ranged to be able to stay alive (hence why you do see most pugs playing range). I mean look at the champion rabbit, if a pug walks upto the rabbit gets one shot, his going to switch to range just to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Melee is not impossible, but the way most boss fights are at the moment, it’s so much more appealing and easier to just go ranged.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

ComeAndSee.1356:

As soon as you walk into your first dungeons as an inexperienced lowbie you come to the realization that the majority of encounters DO currently favor ranged combat because many bosses have melee-ranged AOE abilities that make it extremely hazardous and then there are fights where you HAVE to used ranged weapons regardless.

Well, I think the thing I take issue with in your reply is what I have put in bold, and how it is something I felt I said in my post. Its about class mastery. It’s easy as ranged to let other people who are melee pull aggro while you stand off to the side and range them – nobody is ever going to argue that. But in the situation that it is a 1v1 and you are left with either melee or ranged, and you have to fend for yourself, I prefer melee weapons and am way better at handling 1v1 that way.

This thread claims that dungeons favor ranged players, which I disagree with. Group dynamics favor ranged players due to them having to be less active in their damage mitigation, allowing them to focus more on damage output. In the moment of a 1v1 though, I feel melee is superior to countering and fighting back. Of course each class/weapon has its strengths and weaknesses in that regard, but from my personal experience in a 1v1, I draw my swords and get to work… but again, it’s all very situation dependent.

I apologize on my last post I was rushing because it was 5 minutes before punch out and my boss was hovering around so I didn’t get to type out this last part.

I’m not actually complaining about the fact that you can’t melee-faceroll every fight and that you’re forced to widen your tools (i.e. weapons) in order to adjust for every encounter.

For example on my Guardian I have a Scepter, Staff, Mace, Greatsword, and a Shield and on my Thief I have two Pistols, two Daggers, and a Shortbow and depending on the fight, I adjust accordingly.

However, I’m going to stand by my statement that the current dungeon designs are balanced around a risk versus reward in regards to melee. If you know how to dodge every boss ability and avoid the aoes (or you’re just a beast tank) than you are going to do well. If, however you can do the same damage (and maybe alt tab a few times) without the extra effort than you can just whip out the ranged weapon. In the end it comes down to “did the boss die” and not “did you see me dodge all these circles”?

On my Guardian I am the “tank/healer” build (I don’t even know what to call it— people call it bunker) where I have high toughness and +healing. If the boss fight requires tanking I’m ALWAYS up front taking the beating and supporting my allies. I know how to dodge just about everything you can throw at me because I’ve learned from hard experience to recognize the boss queues.

Now on some fights there’s no tanking or using melee weapons isn’t worth the hassle so I switch out my Mace for a Scepter, move traits around, and change skills. Now I become more “support” where I use my dodge roll heal and other skills to help my team-mates out.

Good to see that the thread has not turned into flame-wars. Thanks.
I do not feel i can describe the issue anymore or in further details, as Krag, ComeAndSee and EliteZ pretty much sum up my thoughts as well.
However, people still seem to think of this as a l2dodge or l2p issue, which is still not the case. Even if i am fully capable of meleeing “The Hammer Dude” and dodging his attacks, it still does not change the fact that his mechanics are favouring ranged.
Its a cold fact that his agony spell can be avoided by staying of of range, the problem is that staying out of range actually means staying in range. Because you can still deal dmg, while melee characters have to time their dodges. I like having to dodge, i think it promotes more skilled gameplay. But these dangers should apply to ranged as well.

I’d like to briefly touch upon another subject presented in this thread. Melee being faster than ranged. This is very often the case, BUT if you are melee and have specced for survivability you are sacrificing a lot of dmg. If you do not spec survivability you will probably deal more dmg than ranged, but you will be very vulnerable.
I’m playing a guardian (mostly) and i often seem to take pretty much all of the aggro. I can easily run around with 10+ mobs chasing me, while my mates have none. Im usually fine because i have specced a sturdy build. However, if you wanted to spec for dmg as a guardian, this would not be the case, and going melee would be very difficult.
My point is: A ranger with full berserker or a condition dmg build will deal more dmg than I as guardian, because it would be suicide for me to go melee with 13k health in a PUG and therefore most guardians spec survivability to some extend.
This means that he will deal more dmg AND be a lot safer since he does not have to worry about 50% of the boss mechanics.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

It depends on how well you move, and, again, class mastery. If I can stand -smartly- in front of something utilizing my skills to mitigate damage, then I don’t have to run around and use zigzag/circle strafing to overcome things. Again though, its a class/technique thing, and even then also dependent on the mobs you face.

In the case it is a 1v1 moment, it could be that you are the last survivor of your group on a boss nearly dead, or got ambushed by something while separated from your group. Dungeons are group play, but there are standout solo moments in them.

I disagree that these are solo only concerns. There are a few factors that make this true even in a group environment.

1. Bosses seem to be loaded with devastating PBAoE, often times with only subtle tells.
2. If you build with sufficient skills and traits to be able to survive, you are spending your time surviving and not contributing DPS. Given the amount of PBAoE, this typically applies even if you don’t have the aggro, so it’s not even a case of tanking.
3. Every time a melee character moves, they have to spend attention adjusting their direction to ensure that they are facing correctly. (In range this is less of a problem, because the amount of adjustment is more subtle. Again, this can be adjusted for, but it is reducing the DPS effectiveness. Once more, since there are a number of AoEs, this applies mostly to getting out of the way of AoE, whether or not aggro is present.
4. If the boss is at all mobile, a melee character spends significant amount of time chasing them around as aggro switches. Worse, if a team member is forced to kite. So again, the player is focused on motion, not on utilizing their skills. Sure, the melee character can build for some CC/cripple/freeze, but to keep that at high up time will require even more concessions around DPS or concessions to survival.
5. Melee skills are often self-rooting. When they are self rooting, they usually have a smaller effective area than the self-rooting ranged skills. (compare warrior HB to the ranger Barrage)

This isn’t to say that melee is impossible. We all know that it’s not. In fact in open world, regular mobs, melee can often clean up. However in most boss encounters that I’ve seen (open world, dungeon, or story instance), a melee character has to make more trade-offs. Since there is no aggro control in the game, these trade-offs don’t provide the group any benefit. So, further, if you know that you are going to be facing a boss at any point, given that there are traits directly related to weapon lines, why would you not trait and therefore always play for that safer, more DPS effective ranged option?

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Well, I think the thing I take issue with in your reply is what I have put in bold, and how it is something I felt I said in my post. Its about class mastery. It’s easy as ranged to let other people who are melee pull aggro while you stand off to the side and range them – nobody is ever going to argue that. But in the situation that it is a 1v1 and you are left with either melee or ranged, and you have to fend for yourself, I prefer melee weapons and am way better at handling 1v1 that way.

This thread claims that dungeons favor ranged players, which I disagree with. Group dynamics favor ranged players due to them having to be less active in their damage mitigation, allowing them to focus more on damage output. In the moment of a 1v1 though, I feel melee is superior to countering and fighting back. Of course each class/weapon has its strengths and weaknesses in that regard, but from my personal experience in a 1v1, I draw my swords and get to work… but again, it’s all very situation dependent.

Sorry to reply out of order. That’s what I get for working through the dev tracker. xD
I think you’re drawing a semantic line that has no practical difference. As a content designer designing for a dungeon, you are not designing for solo play. You are designing for group play. In fact, if I am to look at this as set theory, “Dungeons” are a sub-set of “group play.” But really, the problem isn’t largely dungeons or largely group play. It is a factor of how the bosses were designed around group play (inside and outside of dungeons). It’s about hot zones, aggro control (what aggro control?), and the opportunity cost of mechanics for risk mitigation vs reward vs frequency of use. It’s simply an RoI calculation.

It is my experience that I can survive longer and do more damage with aggro in a ranged build than I can with aggro in a melee build with similar damage characteristics.

My initial play in the game as an inexperienced player taught me “Don’t go near anything champion or higher, you’ll get roflstomped with no clue why.” How did I L2P? I went ranged.

I believe it is possible as a content designer for you to balance this out by designing the hot zones and skills on some bosses such that there is a more even risk level across areas. However, I wonder if it would end up with some seriously broken mechanics. In the end, I think this is a more core game mechanic “problem.”

Idk, try omnoberry. Try to see patterns.
Fotm ranged?
grawl Shaman, yes.
dredge/ele? yes.
Mossman? Probably.
Asura? Depends on having reflect in group.
Others? No way, i just spam grenades under myself (sic).

Auesis.7301:

Legendary Archdiviner (hammer dude): I don’t even know what “Ring of Warding” refers to. He has a melee swing which is fairly easy to dodge, the large AoE circle spam (the Agony application) and a well-telegraphed spin that sends Confusion projectiles with high power, along with a high-power leap attack. All are fairly easy to dodge.

Ring of Warding is the confusion projectiles. And excuse me but it’s hardly classified as a “well-telegraphed spin” that is “fairly easy to dodge”.

This attack by itself, while still avoidable is a big melee hostile combo by itself. The reaction time to avoid it is equal to the windup animation (+ your current lag) in melee compared to “windup animation + somewhat slow projectile travel time” for ranged. And it comboes with the harsh fact that melee players will eat up to 5 projectiles at the same time (did it once, 5×3500 damage hurts) while ranged players will at best get hit once if they don’t just stand between them and get no damage instead.

Currently, ranged combat is just too easy in risk/reward department. Either make their life harder or decrease all the melee hate. Former is much more preferable, pressing A and D in random rotation shouldn’t let you play with one hand by spamming autoattacks but unfortunately that’s how most people play.

stof.9341:

Auesis.7301:

Legendary Archdiviner (hammer dude): I don’t even know what “Ring of Warding” refers to. He has a melee swing which is fairly easy to dodge, the large AoE circle spam (the Agony application) and a well-telegraphed spin that sends Confusion projectiles with high power, along with a high-power leap attack. All are fairly easy to dodge.

Ring of Warding is the confusion projectiles. And excuse me but it’s hardly classified as a “well-telegraphed spin” that is “fairly easy to dodge”.

If it isn’t well-telegraphed and easy to dodge, please explain how I can remain right next to him and dodge the attack every single time he attempts it. The wind-up is extremely obvious.

Everything else you’ve said just goes exactly with what I’ve said about the risk/reward ratio. Melee SHOULD have a higher risk than ranged, for a greater pay-off, and it does.

You play ranged for less risk and less reward (lower damage).

Or melee for greater risk and greater reward (more damage).

Don’t really see the problem.

I use both.

wouldn’t be so bummed about melee if i could actually see what most kitten bosses are doing or about to do, which can be hard sometimes with all the kitten special effects going all around me. my simple reasoning for combat favouring ranged is that there are ALOT less attacks you have to avoid at ranged distances. seems most bosses have heavy hitting melee attacks and very few ranged ones or none at all, which brings up the typical “risk/reward” arguement.

how about some bosses who have a series of ranged attacks and mostly ignore close range players… but do something destructive to melee IF there is nobody ranged. I spose that would suck for some 5 man compositions but that’s usually how a typical raid boss would work that was melee friendly, as an example that is. i cant recall any boss in here being anything like that, or maybe that kind of AI is too much effort for a simple dungeon boss vs a raid boss from another mmo.

Auesis.7301:

Everything else you’ve said just goes exactly with what I’ve said about the risk/reward ratio. Melee SHOULD have a higher risk than ranged, for a greater pay-off, and it does.

I’d actually love to see some good solid data on this one. My experience is that it doesn’t. Clearly yours is that it does. DPS calculations aren’t really a good enough measuring stick, because the contention that I and a number of folks are making is that the amount of time spent dodging, turning, healing, buffing, etc… is detracting from the overall DPS scores… The only way I can think of to do this reasonably is to have a player skilled at both a melee and ranged build solo a series of vets and possibly champs with timings. Until that point, we’re all arguing impressions and theory.

Minion of Vey.4398:

You play ranged for less risk and less reward (lower damage).

Or melee for greater risk and greater reward (more damage).

Don’t really see the problem.

I use both.

It’s more like this:

You play ranged for almost 0 risk and less reward (lower damage).

Or melee for greater risk and greater reward (more damage).

Auesis.7301:

If it isn’t well-telegraphed and easy to dodge, please explain how I can remain right next to him and dodge the attack every single time he attempts it. The wind-up is extremely obvious.

Everything else you’ve said just goes exactly with what I’ve said about the risk/reward ratio. Melee SHOULD have a higher risk than ranged, for a greater pay-off, and it does.

I don’t pretend that it’s impossible to avoid. I manage it fine too but I still consider that to be far too harsh. We talk about an attack with around 0.5s warmup that if you fail to dodge will remove 15k or more HP at once and put many stacks of very strong confusion on you which can cause you to lose even more HP on the spot.

No matter how you turn it, the risk is far far far higher for melee players than ranged in this case.

This post is 100% accurate. The point isn’t L2Dodge issue… It’s that ranged doesn’t need to dodge. They can just stand there and auto attack the boss to death.

I do a lot more damage with axe as mainhand but I find myself going rifle for most bosses now on my warrior. Not that it’s better. It’s just so much easier just standing there without a care in the world practically AFKing most fights.

Wreckdum.8367:

This post is 100% accurate. The point isn’t L2Dodge issue… It’s that ranged doesn’t need to dodge. They can just stand there and auto attack the boss to death.

I do a lot more damage with axe as mainhand but I find myself going rifle for most bosses now on my warrior. Not that it’s better. It’s just so much easier just standing there without a care in the world practically AFKing most fights.

I would never want you in my party if you are a warrior “afking” with a rifle so you wouldnt have to think about playing.

Personal pet peeve of mine is when a person I know performs at 40-50% of what their capable of just cause they’re lazy or its easier for them to let the party carry them. I’m not asking for 110%, but holy ****, afking at range with a rifle on a warrior…

I always tell this to people in doungeons:

“Don’t stop”.

Manny melee players tend to run to target, and stand there, but most melee weapons have 1st slot skills that an be used on the move.
There’s exceptions like the ranger’s sword, but well, you don’t bring those to a fight against a boss that hits more often than you can dodge and for more than your health.

Most enemy attacks hit a cone in front of them, so if you move in circles around them, you’ll never be hit.

Yet they still ignore my warning, and stop moving, and get hit.

Ohoni.6057:

I think this can be summed up as:

Ranged: Easier, Less Damage
Melee: Harder, More Damage

Which seems perfectly reasonable.

That may be true with some classes, I know my Thief does better up close than at a distance, but my Necro can do ungodly amounts of damage at medium range, well outside melee.

If you think a necro does ungodly damage at any range I question your experience, and as a result I cast aspersion upon any opinion you have to offer on this topic.

Minion of Vey.4398:

Have to chime in on people saying you can’t melee bloomhunger.

If you’re willing to give it a try a few times and get downed some, you’ll find it’s actually relatively easy after a bit.

I used to be the same way, did bloomhunger ranged probably a hundred times. Random guy in my group once just fought in melee the whole time, didn’t get downed. I saw that, gave it a try next time, got downed some, tried it some more…now I just melee bloomhunger exclusively.

As an elementalist.

you know I dont think I’ve ever done that fight as anything but a melee. Even my first time in with no agony resist I didnt find it hard at all once I figured out what attack caused agony. It might be bad if the whole group was melee clustering all the poison clouds in one spot but asside from that its really not that much harder than trying to melee an oakheart without geting knocked on your kitten

If you think a necro does ungodly damage at any range I question your experience, and as a result I cast aspersion upon any opinion you have to offer on this topic.

I play a character of each class, three of them to 80 so far, the rest somewhere between 20 and 60, of them the Necro does the most damage. at least against large packs. No big numbers, all little numbers, but a LOT of little numbers, very fast.

Ohoni.6057:

If you think a necro does ungodly damage at any range I question your experience, and as a result I cast aspersion upon any opinion you have to offer on this topic.

I play a character of each class, three of them to 80 so far, the rest somewhere between 20 and 60, of them the Necro does the most damage. at least against large packs. No big numbers, all little numbers, but a LOT of little numbers, very fast.

1 Auto attack from a warrior is equivalent to 36 stacks of bleeding with 1000 condition damage.

1. Its not possible to hit 36 stacks of bleeding.
2. The time it’d take to even build 25 stacks of bleeding, your warrior would of hit the target with 3+ auto attacks.
3. If the warrior even decides to add 100b or WW into the attack, your necro’s damage is blown off the planet.

More little numbers =/= more damage.

Ohoni.6057:

If you think a necro does ungodly damage at any range I question your experience, and as a result I cast aspersion upon any opinion you have to offer on this topic.

I play a character of each class, three of them to 80 so far, the rest somewhere between 20 and 60, of them the Necro does the most damage. at least against large packs. No big numbers, all little numbers, but a LOT of little numbers, very fast.

Play some more characters then, direct damage is far superior in PvE and you can’t get anywhere close the same damage with conditions simply because condition damage doesn’t have close to the same modifiers that DD build does from power + precision + crit % dmg.

1 Auto attack from a warrior is equivalent to 36 stacks of bleeding with 1000 condition damage.

1. Its not possible to hit 36 stacks of bleeding.
2. The time it’d take to even build 25 stacks of bleeding, your warrior would of hit the target with 3+ auto attacks.
3. If the warrior even decides to add 100b or WW into the attack, your necro’s damage is blown off the planet.

More little numbers =/= more damage.

The picture you paint indicates a class in need of severe nerfing, but doesn’t seem accurate. I’ve played warriors and never known them to be nearly so effective, particularly not against large groups. Also keep in mind that Necros aren’t just stacking Bleeds, they’re also stacking Poison and Vulnerability.

It is because of all you melee characters that I made a D/D healer specced elementalist.
All my heals only affect the people around me so when I’m close-range/melee-range I heal and buff allies while doing pretty good damage and it feels like active combat. Compared to that you could go ranged and not enjoy the game much.
Sayin that ranged players get more reward is false since they are missing the thrill you melee guys get from being in close combat.

I play the game for fun, Fun is the reward and melee is where its at.