Guild Wars 2

Do it with the kittentiest class in the game.
Ranger.
Than i’ll watch it.

Arekai.5698:

Do it with the kittentiest class in the game.
Ranger.
Than i’ll watch it.

I dont see why ranger couldnt really besides have so many nay sayers on the forums that it discourages the top players from even attempting it. I have 7 level 80’s and I would play my Ranger in pve dungeons over my necro.

haviz.1340:

Yes, bosses with perma retaliation and heavy anti-melee skillsets are great examples of multifaceted bosses.

What are these anti-melee skillsets? Until his fiery greatsword phase, which at 48+ rarely happens anyway, you can melee all you want if you are any good at dodging agony — and you should be good at dodging agony by 48+. I hope.

What other anti-melee boss in fractals are you referring to?

And perma retal is anti-melee? My scepter ele on air attunement (the only non-miserable auto on a power based ele) and greatsword mesmer beg to differ, as does any ranger using shortbow or rapidfire. Try using arc lightning on this boss and see how quickly it depletes your hp versus using d/d.

1. Shaman’s arrow – just press a and d in random order.
2. Captain’s agony – hits twice in melee, 0 times in range.
3. Dredge/elemental boss – can’t melee them without high degree of communication, at least permanently.

Never said perma retal is anti-melee.

2. I have never been able to dodge both hits (so I block the other one) which makes it even nastier (maybe my timing is just off). Also his Meteor Shower is great area denial.

haviz.1340:

1. Shaman’s arrow – just press a and d in random order.
2. Captain’s agony – hits twice in melee, 0 times in range.
3. Dredge/elemental boss – can’t melee them without high degree of communication, at least permanently.

Never said perma retal is anti-melee.

1- Everyone dodges the shaman arrow at 48. It’s kitten easy, his only real attack, which he pauses to do. I specifically go d/d on my 14k hp berserker ele to do this encounter because d/d aoe burst is ridiculously good for elementals. If you have access to vigor, you can dodge the arrow without fail. If you don’t, orrian truffle meat stew food with 40% extra endurance regen will do.

2- What’s so hard about dodging the captain’s agony? When he sets his staff sideways, you double dodge. The rest of the time you can melee him mindlessly as he mostly uses storm and flame wall on ranged.

3- Are you serious? Dredge elemental melee is ridiculously easy. The dredge warsuit pauses to do a double stab, which you dodge out of, and he does this attack only once in a while, giving more than enough time to dodge while you backpedal or side strafe.

On the ice elemental, you only need to move out of his ice trail stomp (which you don’t need to dodge, plenty of time to simply walk out of). He does a ground poun which takes about 1-2 seconds of raising his hand to the air and do an aoe agony which you dodge — this attack happens seldomly, easily about as often as the warsuit’s ground pound agony attack. The second attack you may want to dodge is ice spike if circles are surrounding you, otherwise you have plenty of time to move out of the circles before the agony ice spikes come down.

I thought you would actually mention the Mossman, since he’s really the only boss who melees rapidly and hits hard while doing so, in addition to throwing agony axes while he’s stealthed so you can’t see the animation. But the Mossman is a broken gimmicky boss anyways that you just need to bring blocks/immunities on for two people to rez at the same time or keep wolves low throughout the fight to rally.

Wethospu.6437:

2. I have never been able to dodge both hits (so I block the other one) which makes it even nastier (maybe my timing is just off). Also his Meteor Shower is great area denial.

I don’t think warriors have perma vigor via vigor on crit traits like mesmer, guardian, or ele (and engineers can get easy vigor from toolbelt traitline plus elixir traitline).

What my warrior mate tries to do to mitigate this is he runs warhorn on secondary.

Warriors may need to back out more, but they deal in one ability or autoattack what it takes some classes two or three usages to deal in damage, so if their damage is going to be supremely better I don’t mind their uptime being lessened — they’ll just have to settle with using a rifle or longbow for a bit before jumping back in.

Melee with a guardian, ele, or mesmer — which are the classes I mostly play-- however, is very doable outside Mossman cheese. Mossman cheats everybody, though, just less if you are ranged.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Great job – When you got trapped in that bubble near the end, I thought he may have had you – good on you for keeping your cool and showing well rounded player skills. You did great dodging and positioning, and your use of death shroud was (to me) very well done.
I don’t play a necro so I can’t say for certain if anything seemed broken, but to me it looked legit, and it was a fine exhibition of skill. Fantastic!

Now when you’ve seen that there actually are skilled players in GW2, can we please have some challenging content? You know, content when you have to be organized, dodge properly, use combo fields and the like? It would be fun if I at least once thought “We have to use this combo field” rather than “Let’s just stack 25might to everyone so we can bach through the instance faster”

Thank you for that thorough explanation, though it wasn’t the point. I’ve never said it’s hard for me or for anyone else. I’ve said they have severe anti-melee mechanics. If you range them it’s almost faceroll, if you melee them you have to step up your game. What we need are the bosses with anti-range mechanics.

Also, I want to see how you melee champ grawl shaman without spamming aegis.

I think that’s sort of the goal of every boss in-game, though. In GW2, all melee damage is significantly higher than all ranged damage, and they said that it is for a reason. Rob himself has said that the greater dps output for melee characters is to reward melee play, which is inherently more challenging. The tradeoff for being at range is that it is easier to survive and you do less damage. They may change this in the future, but for now it seems consistent with what we have in-game.

haviz.1340:

Also, I want to see how you melee champ grawl shaman without spamming aegis.

You can hide behind a wall of reflection/feedback/whatever and melee from max distance so he wont knock you back.

To the OP: great job, I thought it was not possible for a necro to get out of bubbles!

haviz.1340:

Thank you for that thorough explanation, though it wasn’t the point. I’ve never said it’s hard for me or for anyone else. I’ve said they have severe anti-melee mechanics. If you range them it’s almost faceroll, if you melee them you have to step up your game. What we need are the bosses with anti-range mechanics.

Also, I want to see how you melee champ grawl shaman without spamming aegis.

Champ melee grawl shaman has a spinning kick animation to his melee attack. If you’re a d/d ele it won’t even activate due to the increased range

The anti-range mechanic is range doing considerably inferior damage than melee, and the majority of ranged autoattacks don’t cleave. A ranger’s bow attacks that cleave are barrage on a 30 sec cd, and poison spread on shortbow, which does no damage whatsoever. Mesmer is berserk phantasm and shatter, both over 10 sec cd. Ele only has staff with fireball and air auto, and while they have good aoe skills, if you’re not using fireball your sustained cleaving is far inferior to melee cleaving and sustained.

Pretty much every speed run done of any pve content uses melee. You rarely see “looking for x class or spec that excels at range”, for a reason. Competent melee are far more desirable and efficient to a group. Range is a fallback and tool mostly used in WvW.

Ill say, Im used to being a Mage/Caster in all my games. Why? Melee = Harder but the DPS was always the same or even having casters do more. This game has finally flipped the script, at first I was mad. Now, it actually makes sense… So leave it

Zenith.7301:

Wethospu.6437:

2. I have never been able to dodge both hits (so I block the other one) which makes it even nastier (maybe my timing is just off). Also his Meteor Shower is great area denial.

I don’t think warriors have perma vigor via vigor on crit traits like mesmer, guardian, or ele (and engineers can get easy vigor from toolbelt traitline plus elixir traitline).

What my warrior mate tries to do to mitigate this is he runs warhorn on secondary.

Warriors may need to back out more, but they deal in one ability or autoattack what it takes some classes two or three usages to deal in damage, so if their damage is going to be supremely better I don’t mind their uptime being lessened — they’ll just have to settle with using a rifle or longbow for a bit before jumping back in.

Melee with a guardian, ele, or mesmer — which are the classes I mostly play-- however, is very doable outside Mossman cheese. Mossman cheats everybody, though, just less if you are ranged.

That Agony was a l2p -issue. Went there solo and fixed my timing (bit unsure what Vigor has to do with my timing though).

Could you give some tips about Meteor Shower? What do I do when it covers entire melee-area?

Wethospu.6437:

Zenith.7301:

Wethospu.6437:

2. I have never been able to dodge both hits (so I block the other one) which makes it even nastier (maybe my timing is just off). Also his Meteor Shower is great area denial.

I don’t think warriors have perma vigor via vigor on crit traits like mesmer, guardian, or ele (and engineers can get easy vigor from toolbelt traitline plus elixir traitline).

What my warrior mate tries to do to mitigate this is he runs warhorn on secondary.

Warriors may need to back out more, but they deal in one ability or autoattack what it takes some classes two or three usages to deal in damage, so if their damage is going to be supremely better I don’t mind their uptime being lessened — they’ll just have to settle with using a rifle or longbow for a bit before jumping back in.

Melee with a guardian, ele, or mesmer — which are the classes I mostly play-- however, is very doable outside Mossman cheese. Mossman cheats everybody, though, just less if you are ranged.

That Agony was a l2p -issue. Went there solo and fixed my timing (bit unsure what Vigor has to do with my timing though).

Could you give some tips about Meteor Shower? What do I do when it covers entire melee-area?

Vigor helps with grawl shaman in the case he constantly wastes arrows on you, or when elementals pop up and you need to dodge an incoming focus of their attack to not go down, or when you need to dodge out of a meteor storm but still want to have enough endurance should he choose to shoot you after the storm.

For ascalon boss you get out or use Endure Pain during his meteor storm. Chances are he will cast it at other people a lot of the time, and not necessarily on you.

The point was that the anti-melee mechanics claim is exaggerated.

So I need to get out of melee-range (stop using melee) but it is not anti-melee?

Wethospu.6437:

So I need to get out of melee-range (stop using melee) but it is not anti-melee?

Is the game anti-rez because it stops you from rezzing people by dropping deadly aoe on top of them?

The two options carry inherent penalties. Melee does considerably more damage sustained and to more mobs than range, but has to undergo risk or threat of death to be balanced against range. If you’re able to just sit on a boss and with learned dodges achieve near 100% uptime, what’s the kitten point to going ranged?

Great analogy! Now we understand each others. I’m gonna improve my lack of dodging so I can be a part of speed running.

Is that bitter sarcasm I see on a forum?

The majority of fractal bosses allow 100% melee, which translates to an encounter that favors melee. The ideal is that you would have encounters that benefit different setups, but so far the majority of bosses can be melee’d safely when you learn to dodge their attacks.

Just because ranged is easier for inexperienced people does not make it BETTER for range or that the fight is biased in their favor. They might beat the content, but do so inefficiently compared to an experienced group of melee builds. That’s the current trade-off.

Nonsense, I’ve always wanted be a part of speed running groups but I lacked some important factor.

/shrug

OK. Have fun with someone else.

Zenith.7301:

Wethospu.6437:

So I need to get out of melee-range (stop using melee) but it is not anti-melee?

Is the game anti-rez because it stops you from rezzing people by dropping deadly aoe on top of them?

The two options carry inherent penalties. Melee does considerably more damage sustained and to more mobs than range, but has to undergo risk or threat of death to be balanced against range. If you’re able to just sit on a boss and with learned dodges achieve near 100% uptime, what’s the kitten point to going ranged?

Exactly, some bosses have anti-rez mechanics with big and strong AoEs. But I wouldn’t go as far as claim game anti-rez. Similarly some bosses have mechanics which are a lot more effective against melee-players.
I guess point of ranged is that everyone can win.

Zenith.7301:

The majority of fractal bosses allow 100% melee, which translates to an encounter that favors melee. The ideal is that you would have encounters that benefit different setups, but so far the majority of bosses can be melee’d safely when you learn to dodge their attacks.

Just because ranged is easier for inexperienced people does not make it BETTER for range or that the fight is biased in their favor. They might beat the content, but do so inefficiently compared to an experienced group of melee builds. That’s the current trade-off.

Something that allows for melee doesn’t mean it’s favorable for them. You every post seems to indicate you think my opinion is that melee is too hard. That’s wrong, rather I’m expressing my concerns that ranged is too easy, even for inexperienced people. There’s just too much difference in difficulty between those two approaches while the reward (cleaving doesn’t matter against bosses) for taking more difficult one isn’t that much higher.

Oh, and warriors don’t do few times more damage with one ability than other classes. Take into account casting time and other important factors.

End of offtopic and congratulation again!

haviz.1340:

Zenith.7301:

The majority of fractal bosses allow 100% melee, which translates to an encounter that favors melee. The ideal is that you would have encounters that benefit different setups, but so far the majority of bosses can be melee’d safely when you learn to dodge their attacks.

Just because ranged is easier for inexperienced people does not make it BETTER for range or that the fight is biased in their favor. They might beat the content, but do so inefficiently compared to an experienced group of melee builds. That’s the current trade-off.

Something that allows for melee doesn’t mean it’s favorable for them. You every post seems to indicate you think my opinion is that melee is too hard. That’s wrong, rather I’m expressing my concerns that ranged is too easy, even for inexperienced people. There’s just too much difference in difficulty between those two approaches while the reward (cleaving doesn’t matter against bosses) for taking more difficult one isn’t that much higher.

Oh, and warriors don’t do few times more damage with one ability than other classes. Take into account casting time and other important factors.

End of offtopic and congratulation again!

See, you keep insisting that i´m implying you say that melee is too hard or that melee is too hard for you. I think your skills are long established in these forums, and quite frankly didn´t get the hostility as if I was condescending to your skills.

I just disagree with the idea that the game goes out of its way to penalize melee. I just believe melee has its big payouts with fair setbacks. If melee is going to be undeniably superior when properly performed to range, then I don´t mind it being exposed to punitive measures that might inconvenience the player more.

Wethospu raises a fair point in that you can reliably win with ranged. Maybe they ought to adjust that. But if they´re going to make ranged jump through the same survival hoops, then they´ll need to lessen the gap in damage and cleaving that melee has over ranged.

Maybe they ought to take the approach of other MMO´s where some fights favor one setup, while some favor the other. Melee do better single target, movement heavy fights — and ranged do better in fights with multiple target and environmental hazards. some variety is ideal. I don´t think it´s there, though. I find the majority of encounters in this game allowing me to sit on melee, especially on my mesmer-guardian-ele, and i just don´t see the point of range on these encounters when i can save myself some time and have that extra spare time to do other activities I might like in the game.

Maybe i’m not getting it but all i see haviz saying is that bosses have anti-melee mechanics, which is definitely the case.

Oh well, he’s also throwing around with sarcasm, as you already correctly noticed

Zenith.7301:

In my opinion it is anti-melee if we have melee as a high risk/high reward and ranged as low risk/medium reward.
Which is exactly case on some situations where melees need to constantly stay alert and be ready to dodge while ranged might not even have to dodge at all.

But in the case of fractal 48, you have to stay alert and dodge unless you want to go down from agony. At that point it becomes mandatory to dodge agony for everybody.

The ascalonian general and mossman may be anti melee, but the majority of bosses are not. And so I was surprised by the dismissal of claiming fractal bosses as multifaceted because supposedly they all favor range.

What about Subject Alpha? What about CoF in general?

And is it really high risk when you learn the encounter? Sure, you have to stay alert, but for example once you learn Subject Alpha it’s kind of a sad cake walk, and the same can be said for the grawl shaman boss and dodging his arrows.

I think people pay attention to the rewards more than the risk, because with time risk goes down, and the reward is easier to obtain consistently as people get familiar with content.

I think part of the problem also is how you have one melee weapon and one ranged weapon that are good and flexible, while the rest are all niche uses. The greatsword is a very flexible weapon on the warrior, part of the reason it is used over the mainhand axe despite mainhand axe doing more sustained damage. The greatsword simply can do more things. You can say the same thing of the elementalist’s staff versus the ele’s scepter.

Maybe they should actually commit to introducing objective variety in fights and making some weapons not so universal compared to others so each fight generally tends to favor a specific weapon usage. Some fights might require a high mobility weapon, while others need the weapon with burst — some bosses are weaker to condition damage, while others are weaker to direct damage and whatnot.

Thing is, you don’t have to dodge arrow and captain’s agony, staying at range suffice.

haviz.1340:

Thing is, you don’t have to dodge arrow and captain’s agony, staying at range suffice.

For the captain, yes. For the shaman, he can force you into many situations where you need to dodge it. When elementals come out, if you don’t have a guardian or mesmer during phase change, people actually have to watch out for the arrow. If you need to walk across to rez someone, you have to worry about the arrow. If the shaman gets close to one of the captives, and you need to reposition him, you have to worry about the arrow.

And quite frankly? You can try sidestepping but it’s not always reliable, and why would you take the risk for your group when all it asks is that you press your dodge key in a predictable interval?

If I play scepter/dagger ele, or dagger/dagger ele, which are much better for this encounter than staff? I have to use close range abilities, so I have to worry about the arrow. If I’m an illusionary persona specced mesmer? I want to get close for a mindwrack.

You really should focus on what you put on your argument. If discussion is about fractal bosses then you shouldn’t talk about Subject Alpha or CoF. Honestly, seems like you are constantly trying to set up a straw-man argument. Intentional or not, it makes arguing with you bit annoying.

I would like to ask you one simple thing. Does your party full-melee Captain, Shaman or Dredge/Ice Elemental? For me, that sounds very nonviable meaning you need to have people at range and can’t have everyone at melee. If that’s not anti-melee, then what is?

Wethospu.6437:

You really should focus on what you put on your argument. If discussion is about fractal bosses then you shouldn’t talk about Subject Alpha or CoF. Honestly, seems like you are constantly trying to set up a straw-man argument. Intentional or not, it makes arguing with you bit annoying.

I would like to ask you one simple thing. Does your party full-melee Captain, Shaman or Dredge/Ice Elemental? For me, that sounds very nonviable meaning you need to have people at range and can’t have everyone at melee. If that’s not anti-melee, then what is?

The warriors and guardians in my party melee alongside my d/d ele. Mesmers for some reason should have an easy time meleeing (they have the most short cd melee defenses in addition to permavigor), but they seem to love their greatswords so they rarely come in.

It’s a matter of comfort. Those who have learned the patterns feel safe meleeing tend to do so. Archdiviner in Cliffside is very tricky to learn, but now our guardians and warriors do it consistently. Sometimes our thieves do it as well, but a thief is much more punishing than a warrior or guardian if you take a hammer smash to the face.

And then pretty much the caster classes, while having melee options, still seem to skew to ranged weapons because said weapons are what they deem “caster like”.

If we have to pinpoint an instance in which we’d rather begin with some ranged damage, it’s the dredge waves at 48. Dredge resonant’s multiple shockwaves will put the hurt on you by then, as they hit incredibly hard and at higher fractal levels it’s tons of dredge you have to fight at the same time.

Ascalon trash is also incredibly anti-melee if the charr warband npc’s don’t take aggro. All it takes is two mages or a mager or a warrior or two warriors to 2-shot you, even a defensive guardian.

If anything, I find trash groups at higher fractal levels to be more anti-melee than any boss in terms of times I’d rather put my double/daggers away and go for a more defensive scepter/dagger.