Guild Wars 2

I am just curious about why is it that it seems that must kite all bosses and use your ranged weapons to beat them. in most cases if you choose to go melee you can get off maybe 1 or 3 swings before you have dodge because the boss just started whirling and you just lost half your health. Or, you have try and chase it down because everyone else is using their viable ranged options. If i happen to gain the bosses attention i have to run because the boss does 4k damage normally and i have to save my dodges for the 8k damage hits. It just seems like those who prefer to get up close and personal get screwed more often than not in both PvE and PvP.

I’ve recently started going d/d in dungeons for the lulz. If I can do it as the squishiest class in the game, you can do it with whatever you are. I don’t think it’s that bad

There are no melees in GW2, no profession is forced to go into melee with anything. However, if you decide to go into melee, you really should have a decent amount of HP and toughness to you survive the smaller hits so you can spare your endurance to dodge those that would kill you.
You also probably have to change how you think about boss fights, it’s not about doing as much DPS as possible, it’s all about staying alive till the boss goes down. Yes, this often means that you have to stop doing damage or at least that you should switch to a ranged weapon until you recovered some health. And that’s not different for “melees” and “ranged”, no matter who you decide to do your damage, you have to know when it’s time to back off to stay alive.

The one thing that makes it harder for “melees” compared to other MMOs is that there is no tank.

There’s a limit to the types of mechanics they can add to increase the difficulty, due to the fact that there is no say, dedicated tank/healer, everyone needs to be for the most part responsible for themselves. Throwing down large amounts of PbAoE is an easy mechanic they add to increase difficulty without totally screwing over most of the classes.

Just bring a range weapon for swap always. Not a huge deal, you will learn through trial and error what bosses you can melee in and what bosses you want to stay in ranged for.

It wouldn’t be really fair if melees had to bring swap when ranged didn’t have to do same.
However, pretty much all the time you can do fine with just melee weapons.

What really bugs me out that would I have done more at ranged than playing tag with the boss.

Recently.1043

Just bring a range weapon for swap always. Not a huge deal, you will learn through trial and error what bosses you can melee in and what bosses you want to stay in ranged for.

I would like to see some bosses that you HAVE to melee against, now wouldn’t that be something? It’s not really fun spending 90% of the time on my Warrior with Longbow/Rifle or Sceptre with my Guardian.

Another melee-feedback thread? The issue is the fact foes have defiant (Crowd Control immunity) and NOT that melee sucks

Also that you can’t see smaller enemies well enough at close range so it’s hard to dodge.

Melee itself is fine. What they need to do is give foes a colored outline and modify Defiant.

OP, your thinking a bit off the whole idea.
The real reasoning is: since all classes can have ranged or close quarters combat, there are bosses that are ranged friendly and melee friendly. It’s untrue that all bosses are melee haters. You do need faster reflexes if you are melee to avoid those killing blows. But that is it. Melee deals tons more damage than ranged and that’s why it has higher risk.

Kain Francois.4328:

Another melee-feedback thread? The issue is the fact foes have defiant (Crowd Control immunity) and NOT that melee sucks

Also that you can’t see smaller enemies well enough at close range so it’s hard to dodge.

Melee itself is fine. What they need to do is give foes a colored outline and modify Defiant.

You have a point but they can’t really make bosses susceptible to CC, they would become too easy.

I play in melee on my warrior in explorables 80% of the time. I also dodge alot, this is intended and i like it, there are traits that increase your damage when your endurance isnt full.
When i started this game i thought melee was squishy and all that. Now that i know what i’m doing i think melee is fine.

Look to your spec, your traits and your gear. Ensure you have gear appropriate to your lvl. Make sure you have a condition remove skill, a CC and a stun breaker. Also, get out of the mindset that you need to put 30 points in power and 30 in precision. You will get one-shot….as any class. I facetank all bosses, roll and dodge when needed and I can tell you I am last to die (if we die at all).

There are numerous threads asking Anet to make dungeons more difficult. In their current state they are rather easy if you know the strats. A little investment in proper itemization and selection of skills irrespective of the profession and you wont have this issue.

This isnt ‘learn to play’ advise, you head this advise and I promise you will fair better.

Well one thing I notice is as ranged I have fewer tells I need to watch for unlike what I have to catch while in melee. Also when you have too many flashy spells going on against one of the smaller mobs, stuff will end up blindsiding you.

And another bit is ranged can still deal damage if they screw up on a dodge while learning a fight, melee is pushed out of ranged and thus not doing anything. Makes for a less fun learning curve.

AsteriskCGY.5931:

And another bit is ranged can still deal damage if they screw up on a dodge while learning a fight, melee is pushed out of ranged and thus not doing anything. Makes for a less fun learning curve.

Ranged is easier, it’s the nature of these games.

Personally I don’t want to see them make current content easier, but I would like to see in the future some boss fights that require you to be close. As I previously said – spending 90% of my time at ranged on Warrior or Guardian is horribly boring.

Run a full ranged dungeon group and see if you still think ANet dislikes melee :/

Before you read this post realize its actually from the view point of a melee support guardian.

Ok so that being said as a melee type im the first to admit it takes a ton of skill to play melee. But for me theres nothing like the adrenalin i get from the constant test of my abilities. A well played melee really and truly can be the turning point for a group. We have the ability to limit a mobs movement if we play right allowing for max usage of combo skill’s. That in and of its self can turn a fight around. So from a melee stand point i think ANet has infact given us the most important role. We are the ones who set up those big plays. The old saying of greater the risk greater the reward has never been more truthful in my eyes. Makes my day when i know that i made all the difference.

I’m a fairly rooted s/p thief with a survivability build, and melee is fine by me. I run most dungeons by melee alone until bigger groups require some shortbow control.

Once you have tells and keep your head screwed on during a frantic fight, you’ll be fine in both range and melee.

I would argue melee is viable it does damage , it just has a larger but not so much large chance to get you killed. Now support.. well support builds are usless in this game thats what you should be focusing on.

Amarath.5132:

I would argue melee is viable it does damage , it just has a larger but not so much large chance to get you killed. Now support.. well support builds are usless in this game thats what you should be focusing on.

Support useless? Support build’s are the key to easy groups. More than likely your running with support types and never realizing it. Good support types wont look like traditional heal bots. They will be the people in the front leading the group. Look at who your most active members are and most likely there doing support.

Amarath.5132:

I would argue melee is viable it does damage , it just has a larger but not so much large chance to get you killed. Now support.. well support builds are usless in this game thats what you should be focusing on.

Ifyou beleive this, you need to group with more elementalists, guardians, and warriors. (And probably others, but this is where the bulk of my experience lies)

I melee all the time on my guardian. Sure there are times when I need to dodge out and switch to ranged for a bit or for specific attacks, but I use Greatsword and Hammer on my guardian more then any other weapon.

It’s amazing what a few well placed dodges and boons will allow you to do.

When i made this post i was dieing a lot in dungeons simply because my my groups where ranged heavy group, me being the only soldier in the mix. Being a guardian i found it better to run with other soldiers ( Warriors and Guardians). It makes melee and dungeons not painful at all. Warriors and guardians tend to stay inside the extra large extra long lasting symbol of protection. Not only could I stand in fight bosses a lot longer and easier very few people die and in PvE standpoint warriors are guardians work amazing together. Two of the best groups i have run with are 4 Guardians 1 Warrior or 4 Warriors 1 Guardian. Heck Even 3 Warriors 1 Guardian 1 Elementalist. i was just upset at the constant dieing due to constant boss chasing because i couldn’t hide in my symbol of protection =P

The OP is spot on. Melee is useless in most Dungeon fights.

OP enemy melee, and overwhelming PBAoE make it suicidal.

You need to run with me if you think melee is useless or cant hold their own in dungeons. Ive ran all (except for the last bosses of arah) explorables and there’s only a couple fights where i feel the need to range.

My Warrior is specced for Rifle/Longbow (hey, I actually enjoy being ranged only, and I picked a Warrior over a Ranger because I thought it felt better at the time), and is suited up in full MF armor/jewelry even when in dungeons (yes, I know I’m a terrible person for doing that). Even so, when the group needs more control in dungeons I can usually still pull out a Hammer instead of my Longbow and do just fine spending a lot of time in melee, even though I’m technically a glass cannon that’s missing quite a bit of the cannon. Some bosses and mobs are very obviously unfriendly to people in melee, but as long as you aren’t facetanking a bunch most are okay.

Ecthelion my first post when i created this thread was due to my grouping experience prior to my soldier heavy groups where i couldn’t take refuge in my symbol of protection and my damage and usefulness tanked because i was the only soldier in the group and spent a lot of time chasing a boss. Melee does even better than ranged focus groups in my experience. Soldier oriented Melee groups are awesome.

Melee is fine. There are a couple bosses where you’re better off hitting from range (Ooze boss in Arah) but most are pretty forgiving and give obvious tells for when they’re about to do something. The dungeons at the moment are extremely knowledge based. You need to know when it’s safe to melee and when you have to dodge/move out. My advice would be to always reposition yourself around the boss and don’t waste your dodges on silly stuff like auto attacks. If you have aggro, you will die just standing there regardless of your traits/gear.

Sorry, my second “OP” was for “overpowered”, confusing. My apologies.

Point remains. The risks of going into melee range too great to justify the benefits for all classes, except, maybe, maybe, Guardians. And that is only because their ranged offense is miserable, so they have no other choice, other than pulling out a scepter and going support.

The other classes will all opt for ranged. Even warrior. And TBH, Rifle’s single target damage is around 80% DPS compared to dual axes anyway.

Im a warrior, play with me and ill show you your perceptions are off.

I know, you can dodge, you can Endure Pain etc etc, we need no proof of you 1337 skills, we’ll.. ah… take you word for it OK?

But a rifle still does more damage over the entire course of the fight since you will be firing non-stop and not likely to get killed, so no need for others to come rez you and in turn get themselves killed.

You need to broaden your horizons because clearly uve only seen one side of melee.

Marlafox.8715:

I am just curious about why is it that it seems that must kite all bosses and use your ranged weapons to beat them.

You don’t HAVE to, unless you’re bad at playing melee, in which case you just shouldn’t. It’s not hard at all, the only issue is with people ignoring boss mechanics because most of them are ranged and prefer to run in a circle and spam 1 for the whole duration of the fight. Then all the adds they were kiting get to the melee players and get them blown up. It’s how most of these cases work, you’re simply in a bad group. Most bosses in this game can be killed in melee range, and at least for my guardian, all the time.

I have an absolute blast in melee. Just have to find the right build for you. I had a WoW friend come over and play a Warrior on here and he was absolutely horrible at keeping up on his own two feet. The game definitely has a steeper learning curve for traditional MMOG players.

I suggest to everyone who wants to be melee, take up your most defensive build, gear toughness, gear vitality, and then get to know the mechanics of you class while slowly stripping away at layers of survivability as you learn what you can live without.

Most MMOGs tend to steer melee characters towards maximizing dps so I gotta assume there’s a lot of melee out there with all power/precision/crit dmg gear and a full skill bar of dps increasing abilities. This really doesn’t work for a lot of people but they continue to complain about the difficulty of dungeons.

I’ve played ranger and thief to 80 so far. I use both in melee almost all the time. I spec mine more well-rounded, with sufficient toughness and vit while maintaining a respectable level of firepower. I then compensate for survivability through skills like parry, evasion, weakness, and of course dodging. This is the safe way to play melee, and it is perfectly viable.

Regarding don’t bringing pure glass cannon to a dungeon, I would tend to agree on most cases. However, it is doable if you are good. My friend runs a pure glass cannon mesmer using sword primarily and he has no problem suviving. It all comes down to utilizing your resources correctly more than anything else.

My dungeon group runs all melee and things melt so fast. With everyone being up close on the boss we all are giving each other boons and healing each other. We usually run a warrior, guardian, ranger, thief, and mesmer.

There are very few fights in GW2 that I feel compled to go ranged.