Guild Wars 2

I am a casual player. Staying around level 9 for fractals. I’m interested in melee characters and in particularly I was thinking about the new elite necro reaper. However I am wondering how melee do with fractals. I always play range because it is easier to stay safe.
Is it much harder to play melee in fractals? Is range really easier?

Anyone can learn to melee. Melee is ideal, because you deal a lot more damage in melee range. Additionally, IMO, melee is more fun.

With that said, of course ranging is easier. Ranging literally allows you to ignore over half of the mechanics on average, and increases the ease of reacting to many of the remaining mechanics. It’s playing the game on easy mode from a personal survival standpoint.

So how to learn to melee? I’d check out gw2dungeons.net for their enemy information. Learn their mechanics well. Once you know the mechanics, you can practice reacting to them appropriately. The good news is at level 9, fractals are much less punishing than at higher levels, so your transition to full melee will be less punishing than at level 50 where you might get nearly 1-shot due to a mistake.

One exception Zui, kitten starting archie’s spin that hits instantly if you’re outside ~900 range.

But yes, everything he said. Though the benefits to melee is that you are more likely to share buffs, and in general damage is higher. That in general is important though as an Ele it’s often a good idea to sit just out of melee range for the best of both worlds, your staff is highest damage and allows it, you’re still close enough to share boons, and you’re safely out of the melee hits. Can be done on a few professions, and can and should even be attempted with melee weapons (your melee range is often longer than the enemies, but not always).

My point being simply that it’s not a blanket yes or no, there are pros/cons, and even an in between where you could technically be called both melee and range.

@OP: Necro is the easiest class for you to stay in melee. Given what you said about your reaction and coordination skill, necro definitely gives more leeway to melee than the other classes. Its ranged DPS (Deathshroud) isn’t bad at all.

Also, one of the bosses that almost force you to stay within max melee range is Mai Trin. So do consider the benefit of melee.

A couple of thing I would advice against melee is:
1. When the bosses are obscure by particle effect. For example, Archie, Mossman, Ashym got covered by tons of Guard’s Burning, fake Deep Frozen, etc.
2. When the bosses have unique anti-melee mechanics. For example, Ashym’s Meteor Shower, Grawl Shaman’s Push when not properly max melee. (Sometimes it’s not your fault; if your party members, pets, clones are causing issues then it’s not worth risk it.)
3. When cleave is highly dangerous, the boss’ attack has max range and wide angle. For example: Dredge boss, Mai Trin. Unless you can secure an extra block/evade/invuln and understand the boss’ aggro, don’t risk facetanking it.

Why not melee part of the time and range part of the time depending on the situatuon/enemy? Forcing yourself into either role is just crippling.

whenever I pug scale 50 fractals, I always carry a ranged weapon on swap…because pugs are generally not the greatest, and trying to melee archie by yourself can get you killed extremely fast.

The only boss I dislike meleeing is Archdiviner at the end of Cliffside since his melee “cone” actually hits behind him. He cheats, the kitten…

Mossman can be annoying with particle effects but as long as you can have an earth ele/bear take his attention meleeing him from the back is pretty safe.

If you want a safe class to melee with, pick D/F or staff elementalist. D/F ele’s autoattacks except for earth are all outside the range of a boss’s melee, so you can melee perfectly safe. Staff is easy to melee with because it’s actually a ranged weapon that does more damage than any melee weapon, but it allows you to stand close to melee for boon stacking but just enough distance away from the boss’s melee range.

Definitely do not try to melee with ranger as your introductory experience. 1h sword is a nightmare on some bosses.

Iris Ng.9845:

2. When the bosses have unique anti-melee mechanics. For example, Ashym’s Meteor Shower, Grawl Shaman’s Push when not properly max melee. (Sometimes it’s not your fault; if your party members, pets, clones are causing issues then it’s not worth risk it.)
3. When cleave is highly dangerous, the boss’ attack has max range and wide angle. For example: Dredge boss, Mai Trin. Unless you can secure an extra block/evade/invuln and understand the boss’ aggro, don’t risk facetanking it.

2. The grawl shaman’s axe chop with knockback/reflect is shorter than perpendicular max melee, just need to watch fireballs.

3. The ettin in uncategorized as well, he has a longer melee range perpendicular than straight on, either stand behind or in front, never to the side.

If you toss a rock at him while hes reflecting… they hit for ~40k.

Range is toxic!
Melee and learn asap or you’ll waste your time for nothing.

Jahran.8456:

I am a casual player. Staying around level 9 for fractals. I’m interested in melee characters and in particularly I was thinking about the new elite necro reaper. However I am wondering how melee do with fractals. I always play range because it is easier to stay safe.
Is it much harder to play melee in fractals? Is range really easier?

It depends on which fight / boss and rest of your group.

Personally, I run flexible builds that I can adjust on the fly simply by switchign weapons and/or utility skills. Yes I do a little bit less damage but not by much. When I run in a full zerk team bosses still go down in secs flat but when I can switch to support very quickly if needed.

If I were you, I would also get myself at least 2 sets of armor with 2 different runesets. 1 defensive 1 offensive. Adjust / equip it to better fit the group you are with.

If you want a defensive set pick up knight’s, then swap in zerker pieces as you feel comfortable with boss tells. Be wary, higher armour values will give you more boss aggro, you will need to dodge less by having tanky armour, but more because you will get attacked more often.

Make sure you stay inside/nearby projectile defenses for ranged bosses, for melee bosses slow down their movement speed or increase yours.

SlyDevil.3952:

If you want a defensive set pick up knight’s, then swap in zerker pieces as you feel comfortable with boss tells. Be wary, higher armour values will give you more boss aggro, you will need to dodge less by having tanky armour, but more because you will get attacked more often.

Make sure you stay inside/nearby projectile defenses for ranged bosses, for melee bosses slow down their movement speed or increase yours.

IMO the aggro isn’t worth it. Honestly for necro just go to your melee people, stand a step or two behind them (if they’re any good they’re at max melee) and DS from behind them. Easy mode necro play. Catch a spare hit, no worries you’re set up for DS, Axe/focus + Staff your lifeforce back from the same relative spot (assuming boss would have to move for you to be hit) and repeat. Dagger play is better but outside a well made group not by a ton, and the ease of play with DS build, whooee, it’s my “I can’t see strait right now” build Ohh and circling to the enemies back is generally good, lots of times they’ll focus one person, no reason to give the enemy 2 targets to hit with frontal shots.