Guild Wars 2

How do you melee Ginva the Butcher, the HotW Path 1 end boss effectively?

I find it difficult to melee him properly because I have a hard time getting into max melee range and I get damaged from his regular attacks that I have to range to recover.

If I dodge, I’d risk losing max melee range position.
If I decide to get hit by his attacks, I’d eventually run out of blocks or health despite having on crit HP regen food.

For getting into max melee range, he moves a lot in PUGS that I will lose my position risk getting hit by whirling axes if he starts it.

Thanks for the advice!

Some bosses can’t realistically be melee’d 100% of the time. I’ve always just rotated between range and melee for the boss. And when he whirling axes just ignore him for the most part. You certainly can’t melee him during then and he’s reflecting projectiles so most ranged stuff is moot.

Sorin.4310:

Some bosses can’t realistically be melee’d 100% of the time. I’ve always just rotated between range and melee for the boss. And when he whirling axes just ignore him for the most part. You certainly can’t melee him during then and he’s reflecting projectiles so most ranged stuff is moot.

The best time to melee him is actually when he uses his whirling axe attack because you can hit him from max melee range without getting hit then. At all other times, try to dodge when he does his AA/pull. If you don’t plan to FGS him down, bring 1 AH guardian who can hold his aggro (he always attacks the one with the highest toughness) so you can keep him in 1 spot, which makes meleeing much easier.

Thanks for the response. I haven’t done AH guard in so long but I do keep my Knights gear around.
I’ll try again and see if I can fight him toe-to-toe as AH guard.

Do you know the tell for this AA/pull attack? I’ll try to block it instead of dodging to preserve my position.

Yeah, the dodging applies less to the guard than to everyone else who should be running berserker gear. I think the tell is similar to warrior axe 4 skill.

After destroying his relitation turret you can FGS him behind a pillar as well

http://www.twitch.tv/eco_r_i/c/4510432 Here is my solo of him.

He has an axe throw which is reflectable, something to keep in mind. Generally when me and my buddies melee him we will knock him into the protection turret and have at it. I’ll drop WOR and keep it going. Max melee becomes easier with more experience, eventually you just know where it is. The attacks I really hate is the chill field personally.

When I solod him a long time ago I used GS with axe+sword and kept shake it off in case he chilled me. Basically the only thing that would get me screwed over was getting chilled.

You have to play really defensively and break your 100b chains a lot for this guy if on a warrior.