Guild Wars 2

I’ve just done these bosses a few times and they seem to have a complete anti-melee shield.
If you stay into their range you’re doing down every few seconds, no matter the amount of optimal dodging and CD usage.

This creates some flaws:
1) The fight becomes a root-n-cripple kitefest.
It’s not really the most entertaining of the fights when only ranged is allowed.

2) Melee users will be forced into full ranged for the entire duration of the fight; this means they’re doing sub-par DPS compared to better ranged archetypes (ranger, engi, etc).

These bosses are not hard or anthing, just boring because the whole fight is a root-kite-cripple gimmick that I personally find boring.
This is especially true for Butcher as he’s the “final boss” so you’d expect some adrenaline and tactic requirement.

That’s all

Is the effigy you’re talking about the end boss of path one CoF? I find the whole team going melee to be the best tactic for him. Could be because my groups always have a guardian (not intended, guild seems to have a lot of people with guardians).

The Butcher only goes into anti-melee mode when he does that spinning attack, right? Otherwise you can melee him just fine.
I don’t know what Searing Effigy makes him so anti-melee… I go dual daggers on him as Elementalist, and no problems with him.

I use dual dagger elementalist on the effigy.
I live just fine.
Being that D/D ele is the squishiest melee in the game I can only assume you are doing something wrong.

Keep condition removals on hand. He does double damage if you are on fire.
Dodge roll a lot. You may wish to turn off the melee assistance so its easier to move through him.
Stability works wonders during the phases where you have to burst him down, as he likes to K/D you.
Worst case scenario, back off to a nearby crystal and wait to die so you can instantly rally yourself.

Butcher is not anti-melee, he is invulnerable during whirling axe. His shield reflects projectiles.

You just need to dodge roll away from the shield when it starts.