Guild Wars 2

What is the reasoning behind these:

Swamp: Best of all imho. 1st phase really is a teamwork and easy to do but really hard if ppl dont communicate. And the bosses are the most melee friendly (which does not mean it is easier than ranged, just close to ranged.) Still the axe throw is hard to avoid in melee as it is projectile so easier as the range goes up. He also has some high hitting melee stuff but hey? that much i can accept – till a degree -.

Gnarl Boss: AoE knockback with damage quiet often.

Gnarl elemental: Puts down 3 or 4 fire circles in melee range (this can be avoided easily but still you cant go back in till they are over or boss moves.) which 1 shots you if you dont avoid or go in them. – His agony spell which is a projectile so it gets easier to evade as the range increases due to travel time of projectile. Melee? You have split seconds to react.

Snow place last boss: Every melee hit puts a condition stack has a short range frontal breath also damages and put condition stacks. (Ranged are uneffected – probably the most boring fight after water.)

Underwater: Has an AoE stun/damage ability around itself – again ranged does not have to care.

Ascalon: The agony spell does not hit you if you outrange it (1200 range is fine as i dont have to stop hitting with rifle ever.)

Maw: Tentacles – althou the other mobs seem to counter ranged they dont. They are only ther efor 1 phase which you get out of combat and switch weapons so ranged can just wield any melee thing then switch.

Also snow place mid-boss: You go melee – get fire stacks go off – get frostbitten – have to go find a fire again – light it if unlighted.

Now almost all these fights are plain easy. Yes i know they may get hard later.. i am only level 17. However my complaint is not about the hardness level or what not i really dislike the design of anti-melee.

Why is there so many things to make people go ranged? I’ll almost always do more dps with rifle as warrior while surviving more (lets think i am naked right so no build in this.) than ANY melee combo. Simply because i dont get that much dmg i only need to avoid the real mechanics of the fight and not some dumb anti-melee design.

Now i can think of some reactions so i answer them already:

l2p get a better build: It is not about build as i said the fights are easy so far at least. It is the design that irritates me. A boss puts condition on every single normal attack is nothing smart, or a boss that says * i knock you back every 3 seconds* even with stability of 16 secs it is bad. (it also damages)

Melee do more dps there for it shouldnt be as easy as ranged: Personal experience tells me i do more dps with rifle on bosses as i have no idle time and also it is easier to do so. And in this game some of the highest dps comes from ranged class/builds.

What do you guys think? Do you like the anti-melee design so far? or would you prefer something that simply effects all group – not just there to make melee a pain in the kitten without rewarding it for doing so?

Again i dont care about the hard or easy stuff if the aoe knockback was for all group to avoid i’d okey. If it was not there i’d still be okey. I just see this kind of designs in almost all MMOs i played and fractals is the first place i noticed it heavily in GW2.

Edit: Forgot swamp

For the Grawl bosses, they have red circles which notify you. The high damage from the Shaman is from Elementalist skills, so either have an Elementalist go into Earth Attunement in sPvP to show you the skills or just time the dodge.

For the elemental, you should always be moving, so melee is fine if you circle him, but if he starts doing red circles around himself, you should probably have a ranged weapon as backup. (I’ll get back to this.)

Sons of Svanir boss: If he’s targeting you with the frost breath, it doesn’t matter. It goes to 900 range, I believe, so it’s not just melee that gets hit in the face.

Underwater: Since when has melee underwater been viable outside of trash mobs?

Ascalon: The Squire is the problem, not the agony.

Maw: This fight isn’t about damage. You can melee, you can range as long as you can get a crystal or roll. (Sure, they knockback/down, but that’s what stun-breakers/stability is for.)

Snow Elemental Boss: All melee weapons have a gap-closer.

As for always having a ranged weapon ready, you should at least have a ranged weapon at the ready. If you dungeon a lot or WvW a lot, you’d understand that you want all the weapons in your bag whether or not you use it often. Those few times when you want/need to swap are SOOOO much more beneficial than hoping that someone in your group has a trash weapon. I melee all of the bosses in Fractals except Maw simply because I don’t get that much stability, but I typically run the crystals to my party and get knocked down a lot, which I don’t mind.

If you’re doing fractal bosses in melee range you’re doing it wrong. Every class can use ranged weapons, utilize them.

TheRabbit.9478:

If you’re doing fractal bosses in melee range you’re doing it wrong. Every class can use ranged weapons, utilize them.

That’s not entirely true, as well.

Mesmer with a Sword can distract and “take” shots from every boss without worry. They can also immobilize Dredge Fractal final bosses. Can also be used as an additional roll, and a few other things.

cFor the Grawl bosses, they have red circles which notify you. The high damage from the Shaman is from Elementalist skills, so either have an Elementalist go into Earth Attunement in sPvP to show you the skills or just time the dodge.[/quote]

No the knockback does not.

The AoE you talk about is the earth aoe which is a long cast with a red circle while i am talking about his aoe knockback he do es every few seconds which also damages you. Have you ever meleed the boss? – It can even knock you down to lava if you position yourself / boss badly. (Badly as in..boss stays where it usually stays and you go behind him.) You dont even know this skill shows how much ranged care.

Esplen.3940:

For the elemental, you should always be moving, so melee is fine if you circle him, but if he starts doing red circles around himself, you should probably have a ranged weapon as backup. (I’ll get back to this.)

Yes moving is no problem, the problem is that he makes circles – as you said forces you to go ranged for the time being AND his agony hit is a projectile which is pretty hard to evade in melee range.

Esplen.3940:

Sons of Svanir boss: If he’s targeting you with the frost breath, it doesn’t matter. It goes to 900 range, I believe, so it’s not just melee that gets hit in the face.

Everyone i know (mesmer ranger necro warrior) in my group can range it nonstop with getting hit zero times by his breath. So yea it matters. His MELEE HITS also apply the effect. Every.single.hit.

Esplen.3940:

Ascalon: The Squire is the problem, not the agony.

Does it matter? as i said it is not about the fights mate as i TOLD on first post it is about the stupid designs PURELY to make melee go away. Easy or hard is irrelevant and i had no problem so far in fractals so this is not just qq nerf.

Maw: This fight isn’t about damage. You can melee, you can range as long as you can get a crystal or roll. (Sure, they knockback/down, but that’s what stun-breakers/stability is for.)

Esplen.3940:

As for always having a ranged weapon ready, you should at least have a ranged weapon at the ready. If you dungeon a lot or WvW a lot, you’d understand that you want all the weapons in your bag whether or not you use it often. Those few times when you want/need to swap are SOOOO much more beneficial than hoping that someone in your group has a trash weapon. I melee all of the bosses in Fractals except Maw simply because I don’t get that much stability, but I typically run the crystals to my party and get knocked down a lot, which I don’t mind.

I do understand, i play a lot. I have no problem doing things. It is the design that is stupid. Hmm ok this boss is done..lets add something for melee now seems to be the thinking behind it. And if you actually take time to calculate with the uptime of your DPS in ranged weapons vs DPS in melee weapons it is almost always punishing to go melee. Unless you can EVADE while doing it (As mesmers do on a CD basis.)

TheRabbit.9478:

If you’re doing fractal bosses in melee range you’re doing it wrong. Every class can use ranged weapons, utilize them.

So you are basicly saying what i am saying.. melee has no place in it – dumb and pointless design. And yes mesmers and some thief moves evade attacks (Like greatsword WW also evades) and you can only do those and get back out.

As i repeat myself over and over: This is the problem i see: They put a dumb and pointless move to every boss JUST SO melee can’t dps same as ranged do. Why all groups ive been in if everyone is ranged with exceptions of some support melee runs are so smooth and fast?

I also see i forgot dredge bosses.. but i think those fights are pretty self explaining to melee. dont melee.

I melee in Snowblind, Aquatic and Solid Ocean fractal easily.

Solid Ocean: Tentacles has 2 attacks that cycle, both having 2 different warnings. First is a swing that knockbacks anyway around. A dodge is required for this, or anything kind of block. Its second attack is a slap from above, which doesn’t require a dodge, you can just move to the side.

As for the Jades, if you have nothing that can hit them, just don’t. Keep in mind that ground AoE works.

Aquatic: Nothing hits hard here, except the agony if you have no resist. We pull him to electric cages and tank him even under his lightning whirlwind, in addition to the cages damaging us.

Snowblind: Once again, nothing hard here. When he breath targetting you, dodge behind and wait a few seconds, or switch to ranged. Don’t run around him and make him hit your allies near him…

I didn’t try meleeing The Mossman since low level fractals, but my friends melee him, except when he morph into a werewolf, then everyone kite.

As for Underground Facility bosses, yeah. Kiting is the way to go, since you must always keep them burned.

Edit: Forgot about Urban Battlefield. He charges his Fire Agony AoE just like Kholer. Due to the number of Ally NPC helping you, it can be missed easy. Also, when he use a fiery gs around 20% HP, you pretty much need to kite.

Its been like this since beta, for some reason Arenanet has always favoured Ranged over Melee in Pve..cannot see this changing much tbh.

My melee thief has very few problems on all of these fractals, including the elemental (evades galore with S/D). The only exception I can think of right now is that Tom golem that spins and lobs stuff everywhere, when I jump back and use the bow.

I suppose it depends what melee setup you’re utilising.

Qelris.6901:

…

Mate again the amount of support (let it be stats or a friend in group helping you stay up) wasted just so you can melee does not reward you enough to do it. That is what i am trying to tell if you instead go more dmg in build and go ranged you do more damage plain and simple, i really would like to see a video where anyone has a better DPS counting the whole boss fight than ..lets say me hitting it with rifle.

Also see the reply you tell: you avoid back and wait / go ranged * you again avoid the agony hit since it is visible and go out of melee range while ranged can stay and shoot np* maw attack evade or knocks you down – remember you can pretty much go on ground if maw times his attack right on this knockbacks.

So the point is same, you lose time/evade bar/resources to go in melee..yet you get nothing out of it. If it is about the fight being too easy without these mechanics..let the mechanics be for everyone. If not..then i dont really see the point of them.

I tell again so people dont misundestand: SO FAR I FOUND THE FIGHTS EASY (only lvl 17 thou) i am only questioning the DESIGN of anti-melee system.

Maybe it is just me.. maybe some like this..i dont know i just find it so dumb.

Auesis.7301:

My melee thief has very few problems on all of these fractals, including the elemental (evades galore with S/D). The only exception I can think of right now is that Tom golem that spins and lobs stuff everywhere, when I jump back and use the bow.

I suppose it depends what melee setup you’re utilising.

I did say mesmers and thief can do melee with special avoids. On a CD basis. No other class have that option sadly. I cant tell i’ll just use whirlwind in a smart way till i am out of action points and evade stuff while dpsing it has a poor up time.

Melee is fine up to lvl9 or so. At lvl30 melee is only good for tanking trash mobs, little exaggerated, but mostly true. Anyways about the anti melee design, it is true, I hate it as a warrior, even as a very tankish spec and armor I find myself using my rifle on the boss fights moss of the time.

No offense, but did you just discover that this game is SIGNIFICANTLY unfriendly towards mele in regards to dunegon encounters?

Because it’s been like that since day one.

I assume that kill shot is so awesome because the highest of on high classes normal attacks wouldn’t work well in explorables and a demand was made.

I completely agree – sure, you can try and dance around this by saying that it’s possible to melee bosses in FotM – but, the fact remains: it is far easier, and more responsible, to use a ranged weapon instead of a melee weapon in all boss fights in FotM. In my opinion, it’s completely ridiculous that the fights were implemented in such a way; what’s the point in bringing a melee weapon if it’s only useful in downing trash quickly?

Cotillion.7435:

No offense, but did you just discover that this game is SIGNIFICANTLY unfriendly towards mele in regards to dunegon encounters?

Because it’s been like that since day one.

I assume that kill shot is so awesome because the highest of on high classes normal attacks wouldn’t work well in explorables and a demand was made.

But it is also not rewarding for doing so – bosses dont get hit 15% more in melee or anything you know? Why is it a problem for ppl to go melee then in most cases melee is still harder due to the fact the area of usage is limited to your melee radius around the boss vs ranged radius vs boss (and this game is aoe circles heavy.)

Anyway i think i explained myself already i just wondered if it bothers other people and if they’d like it changed..even if there is a slim chance.. or maybe Anet can tell the idea behind this design.

Game is really anti melee tbh, I run as support or Control in melee on both Guardian or Warrior (both full 80 exotic in respective gear).

Have to sacrifice a fair bit to melee effectively, and by sacrificing everything you do no damage, with the current system with control, using control is pointless. While heavy control builds like Mace+Shield on warrior offer huge survivability via timing blocks effectively, you do no damage and hardly bring any CC to the important encounters, and on top of that, block wont work on a fair few of the skills you actually want to block!

So control is fairly weak in pve boss encounters, works well on trash but lets be honest, who struggles with trash? So that leaves Melee Support… why not just bring a ranged support? Offers pretty much the same, in fact if you wanted to go for a support/control guardian build using shouts, the 600 shout range really hampers your support options. Leaving you going to a consecration build for support, meaning you may as well.. surprise, surprise go ranged.

As many have said, has been like this since beta, and they don’t seam to learn when they add new content.

I like melee on this game. Most fractal bosses I melee, but back off to heal or evade and range a bit.

Several dungeon bosses are the same difficulty or easier than ranged while in melee, IMO:
TA Vine boss
AC final bosses (exp)
Most CoF bosses in 1 and 2
Alpha in 2 and 3 of CoE using stack technique with 1 person ranging
SE bosses in path 3, cept the first guy. 1st and last boss of path 1.
Edit: forgot about Arah: on 3, the first 2 champs and the final boss. Path 2 the Asura with the bombs (1st boss?), the pirate with the pistols and the final boss.

These are just a few of the top off the head, there’s more. Now, I would agree that more bosses are ranged friendly than melee, but I don’t think it s a huge difference.

I feel a lot of fights should be like alpha, if you stay in melee you don;t have to worry about dragon tooth, if you stay at you range you have to worry about it but you get more time to dodge stuff.

wookalar.8952:

I like melee on this game. Most fractal bosses I melee, but back off to heal or evade and range a bit.

Several dungeon bosses are the same difficulty or easier than ranged while in melee, IMO:
TA Vine boss
AC final bosses (exp)
Most CoF bosses in 1 and 2
Alpha in 2 and 3 of CoE using stack technique with 1 person ranging
SE bosses in path 3, cept the first guy. 1st and last boss of path 1.

These are just a few of the top off the head, there’s more. Now, I would agree that more bosses are ranged friendly than melee, but I don’t think it s a huge difference.

I’m not sure how far you’ve made it into Fractals, but in the later levels (post 20), it makes a significant difference. Using melee on bosses in Fractals is extremely detrimental towards your group’s progress, and will generally result in a wipe, or frustrated group-members.

In regards to the other dungeons, I’d argue it doesn’t make such a huge difference because of how absurdly easy they are; however, with the indefinitely increasing difficulty of Fractals, the disparity between the use of ranged and melee weapons is becoming blatantly obvious.

Swamp: Mossman is not melee friendly just because of how hard he kills. Bloom though is pretty easy to melee even at higher levels

Gnarl: You can stand right outside the pushback aoe range and melee >.>

Gnarl Ele: Deal with it

Snow: Knowing who is tanking and who is aggro is kind of the point if you want to melee. Even if you’re tanking there’s still times when you can melee him safely.

Underwater: You don’t NEED to range him, you can melee the boss to death if you want, it’s just quicker to kill him by moving him to the sparks. Also everybody should have at least 1 stun break to break out of stuns. Furthermore you could always have the group fear/sink/float the jelly to rupt that move

Ascalon: Final boss, can be melee’d during the first phase but this is one of the few bosses where you cannot melee at higher levels due to his agony move.

Maw: I do fine meleeing the tentacles by weaving, int, or blinding them. The move they do to knock you down is pretty telegraphed.

Shaikhob.2863:

Swamp: Mossman is not melee friendly just because of how hard he kills. Bloom though is pretty easy to melee even at higher levels

Gnarl: You can stand right outside the pushback aoe range and melee >.>

Gnarl Ele: Deal with it

Snow: Knowing who is tanking and who is aggro is kind of the point if you want to melee. Even if you’re tanking there’s still times when you can melee him safely.

Underwater: You don’t NEED to range him, you can melee the boss to death if you want, it’s just quicker to kill him by moving him to the sparks. Also everybody should have at least 1 stun break to break out of stuns. Furthermore you could always have the group fear/sink/float the jelly to rupt that move

Ascalon: Final boss, can be melee’d during the first phase but this is one of the few bosses where you cannot melee at higher levels due to his agony move.

Maw: I do fine meleeing the tentacles by weaving, int, or blinding them. The move they do to knock you down is pretty telegraphed.

Ppl meleeing the Jelly are getting shouted at.

Snow, sure u can try to predict aggro&kitten but if it changes to you mid fight your screwed.

Mossman is ok as a tanky melee, as long as you can dodge the daggers point blank.

It’s not hard to react to getting aggro >.>

Shaikhob.2863:

..

Gnarl: I’m 100% sure GS max range gets hit. Not even gonna argue on that.
Gnarl Ele: lol
Snow: I’ve tried – with shout build and full yellows it is not possible – you already do really low dps due to the build AND you also get iceblocked like a penguin lose even more and then you still fall on the ground. – Again if you avoid his breath which is not hitting to ranged then you still get hit by his melee hits that turn you into iceblocks no matter. – Again my point.

Jelly: You cant break the stun. Well you can – you have to time it right and evade outside of his AoE range or you’ll get hit by it again. it is a repeated stun. I can and i dont think anyone should need to do that. Also jelly knocks you back in melee which makes you lose dps time YET AGAIN. – And i pretty much would not like to that to my group just so i -can- melee.

Ascalon – exactly.

Maw – Yes the point is that why is it there? only to bother melee some more nothing else. Nothing smart about it.

I feel like i am just defending this but i just do not see anything worthful in what you typed. Really i am not your random party member that knows nothing. I have 4 different sets of armor 2 of these are exotics 2 rares i do test a lot of builds.

Some replies seem to be about * i can do it it is hard but possible* it is hard AND NOT REWARDING and sometimes impossible is the idea.

Shaikhob.2863:

It’s not hard to react to getting aggro >.>

^^ is this even a serious post? even with rifle mossman follows me 7/24. (It is fun too.)
Melee him? Yeah if you go support tanky build and… well see the snowy boss.

I melee the grawl outside his bubble range just fine with an axe. Just because the icon says red doens’t mean you’re out of range. The range for an attack is slightly further than that (50 or so)

I dont ever even look at the icon.. i swing it till miss miss miss disappears 1 step at a time. I’ll try to make a screenshot of it, maybe terrain helps can you tell where the boss was so i can see?

I’ll try when I can. Only way I see me running that path is is if a group gets that on the 3rd fractal since everybody wants to skip it. (Easiest one with the right comp though)

It’s not the same, but the grall bubble has about the same range as that Flame legion shaman. With an axe, notice how my attack says it’s out of range, but yet it can still connect.

Edit: Wrong pic

This should be the right screen shot. I’ll try and get one if I run into the grawl level

Okey are we talkin on same thing? i meant the grawl knockback ability..which if i didnt see wrong has no animation on ground .. it is just that..360 degree knockback in a medium range.

That range does not seem enough..but what the heck? i’ll give it another try with gs then axe and will see.

Shaikhob.2863:

This should be the right screen shot. I’ll try and get one if I run into the grawl level

Uhm, that’s not a boss. That’s a very easy to kill champion.

Tarquinius.3876:

wookalar.8952:

I like melee on this game. Most fractal bosses I melee, but back off to heal or evade and range a bit.

Several dungeon bosses are the same difficulty or easier than ranged while in melee, IMO:
TA Vine boss
AC final bosses (exp)
Most CoF bosses in 1 and 2
Alpha in 2 and 3 of CoE using stack technique with 1 person ranging
SE bosses in path 3, cept the first guy. 1st and last boss of path 1.

These are just a few of the top off the head, there’s more. Now, I would agree that more bosses are ranged friendly than melee, but I don’t think it s a huge difference.

I’m not sure how far you’ve made it into Fractals, but in the later levels (post 20), it makes a significant difference. Using melee on bosses in Fractals is extremely detrimental towards your group’s progress, and will generally result in a wipe, or frustrated group-members.

In regards to the other dungeons, I’d argue it doesn’t make such a huge difference because of how absurdly easy they are; however, with the indefinitely increasing difficulty of Fractals, the disparity between the use of ranged and melee weapons is becoming blatantly obvious.

I’m on 20s and yea it’s gettin harder. I wouldn’t doubt if I had to back out when doin 30s. However, ATM I don’t see much point in going past that until they make the loot more rewarding at higher levels. I swear I get more loot at sub 10 scales than above. Could just be in my head though. More tokens though at higher scales.

TheRabbit.9478:

Shaikhob.2863:

This should be the right screen shot. I’ll try and get one if I run into the grawl level

Uhm, that’s not a boss. That’s a very easy to kill champion.

I used that champ for a reason just to demonstrate how a melee attack can still connect even though it says you’re out of range. Read the post.

Yea he was trying to show me the range of axe. Yet it feels it wont be enough..as i said i’ll try again next time. Also feel free to help me out on the harpy thread

I can’t count how many times I’ve got bored of ranged-auto shot and decided to go melee……only to die a second later.

It happens SO often.

I don’t know what ANet is thinking while designing some of these encounters. The raw amount of melee hostile mechanics in this game are so mind-boggling it’s almost impossible to ever justify entering melee range.

I get that melee is supposed to be higher risk/reward and that’s ok. But melee is always at a higher risk even with no changes to the actual encounter mechanics. And yet you still get constantly gibbed by various attacks that don’t affect ranged players.

I would love to force and then watch some ANet designers play all of their kitteny encounter with a pure melee group and see how well they faire.

Uhh i only Melee, you need to practice it for sure and you will sometimes go down, but the downed mechanic is part of the game. You also need to build for some interrupts and evade spells, Depending on weapon and boss.

So again someone tells: You have to sacrifice a lot to do some dps.

Sacrificing stats – skill slots only to do less dps. And this is a problem imo. They have to increase the reward of meleeing or remove this design philosophy.

I only tell these because i LOVE to melee yet since i like to bring best i can to a group i decided to go ranged – change traits for melee on trash – back to ranged on bosses.

Range > Melee in all aspects. (Survivability / DPS / Support)

TheRabbit.9478:

If you’re doing fractal bosses in melee range you’re doing it wrong. Every class can use ranged weapons, utilize them.

So we should just delete all melee weapons from the game then?

I thought GW2 was about choices, and playing how you want.

I don’t sacrifice anything to melee and I run a melee weapon for every fractal.

Esplen.3940:

I don’t sacrifice anything to melee and I run a melee weapon for every fractal.

Please do show. And i dont mean it in a sarcastic way.. if there is a way i’d really love to see and practise.

I agree all the FOTM bosses are not melee fights. I melee the ele gnarl boss on my gaurdian and dodge his attacks and I usually do the most dps as well as remove conditions and heal the group at the same time.

This is exactly why I would love to have a damage counter. Since beta I have wondered whether my struggle at melee brings more to the group than just being ranged.

But yes I agree. Some bosses one of the strongest attacks are melee ones. I have died so many times to powersuit because I always forgot that its melee attack hits behind too.

I have to agree a lot of the fights are just easier with ranged, and some are that much harder. There are many other places in the game besides fractals that are the same. Actually, it’s not too much of an issue in my opinion.
My only gripe with this is that a game that concentrates so much on ranged fights in many of its areas should have some variety of ranged weapons for all professions. Being a warrior or a guardian doesn’t allow me any choice of ranged weapons at all.

To deal with this problem I shelved my warrior. No point in playing a melee oriented class if I’m going to be ranging fractals 90% of the time.

Everyone can chew the issue for how long they want to, it simply doesn’t make sense to melee in the higher levels.

Guardians have it worst. Staff and Scepter do very little damage.

tyu.9470:

Esplen.3940:

I don’t sacrifice anything to melee and I run a melee weapon for every fractal.

Please do show. And i dont mean it in a sarcastic way.. if there is a way i’d really love to see and practise.

Wear a Sword in Melee

Blurred Frenzy, 2xrolls (3-5 with Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew), Distortion (up to 4 seconds of invuln), rinse and repeat.

Also, F3 will interrupt.

Esplen.3940:

tyu.9470:

Esplen.3940:

I don’t sacrifice anything to melee and I run a melee weapon for every fractal.

Please do show. And i dont mean it in a sarcastic way.. if there is a way i’d really love to see and practise.

Wear a Sword in Melee

Blurred Frenzy, 2xrolls (3-5 with Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew), Distortion (up to 4 seconds of invuln), rinse and repeat.

Also, F3 will interrupt.

The ability to survive in melee still doesn’t make it a good choice for every fractal. As a thief I can survive in melee in any fractal by chaining dodges, evades, and life-leech, but I still don’t do it for fights like the dredge fractal boss because melee just doesn’t lend itself to that constantly-moving fight, especially since I’m often pulling the boss along with scorpion wire.

In the dredge boss I’m either pulling or wearing a ranged weapon then I swap to melee as it gets to the droppoint and I immobilize —> attack. I also use it as panic dodge.

I can only speak for sub-lvl9 difficulty, but Im meleeing just fine at any of the fractal bosses even though I do switch to scepter on occasion if only to contribute at least some damage while Im avoiding things (like waiting for a too high frostbite stack to wear off at the frost shaman boss).

Esplen.3940:

In the dredge boss I’m either pulling or wearing a ranged weapon then I swap to melee as it gets to the droppoint and I immobilize —> attack. I also use it as panic dodge.

Mate i did say that mesmers and thieves can go in melee on a CD basis. Sorry if you missed that part. Yes you have this ability to go invul for so many seconds and thieves cn avoid hits. Thats it thou.

So no that is not about being able to melee. That is about being invulnerable. Not every weapon every class has that option..actually it is a VERY limited option in this game.

Blackwolfe.5649:

I can only speak for sub-lvl9 difficulty, but Im meleeing just fine at any of the fractal bosses even though I do switch to scepter on occasion if only to contribute at least some damage while Im avoiding things (like waiting for a too high frostbite stack to wear off at the frost shaman boss).

1st of all you shouldnt wait for frostbite stack to wear off instead let him hit you some more and go in iceblock which resets the stacks.

on topic: That is exactly the issue. You have to always get out of melee on almost all bosses and lose DPS time while not doing more DPS it simply decreases your viability. And the stacks you talk about come on you so high every 3 secs or so on top of tha t the breath.