Guild Wars 2

So It’s been a long while since I’ve played GW2 but I’m getting an itch. I don’t have an endgame character, I can’t say that once I was there I’d be interested in much more difficult game-play that “normal” dungeons. My question is, is the game still melee focused? Are there any ranged classes/builds worth investing time in? I had the most fun playing a GS/Staff Mesmer and shattering alot, but the more I would read into the forums about the viability of that at “endgame” (which was probably a mistake) the more discouraged I became to play at all. Gosh, this sounds so whiny, that’s not my intention…I’m just looking for input from those “in the know”. Thanks!

inb4 “It’s Morphin’ Time!”

;)

“Ranged Build”
Engineers in general. No melee weapons.
There’s a few melee ranged kits, So you use bombs, a toolkit or a flamethrower to pretend to be one of the melee ‘cool kids’ but it’s just not the same.

At least until HoT brings the hammers down.

Edit:
As for “meta” endgame stuff, people have a min/max mentality when it comes to some things, so everything that isn’t 100% optimal somehow gets seen as “worthless”

As a mesmer, you’re perfectly viable sticking to ranged gear. You don’t HAVE to use a sword. You’ll likely want a more phantasm focused build than a shatter one at range though, I think. The phantasms on GS and Staff are both solid damage dealers.

The thing though is staff/GS is kind of a wonky combination because GS is more power based and Staff is more condition based. If you want both, a stat set like rampager might work, though you’d be very glassy. (All the glassiness of Zerker with none of the hype)

Mesmers have really cool support skills, so you’ll be focusing more on timing reflects and things like that rather than pumping out straight melee damage.

Mesmer is strong in fractals, at least the ones I was running with. I agree with the above about knowing your weapons, though, and about the fact that meta is fine, but you can do what you want. In PvE in particular, it’s just hard to play a class well without benefiting your group. I’d always rather bring someone in their chosen playstyle rather than enforcing the meta on them.

You’re thinking about it all wrong. There aren’t really “ranged” builds or “melee” builds in end-game PvE. It’s more like there are situations where melee is appropriate and situations where ranged is appropriate. Most situations are melee appropriate, but you should be switching weapons/skills/traits pretty much constantly. Most of the fun is figuring out which “build” to use for a particular encounter depending on group composition and skill level. That’s not to say that you can’t stick to ranged, it’s just that your DPS will suffer and groups looking for a timely run may kick you. Hope that helps

Arioso.8519:

“Ranged Build”
Engineers in general. No melee weapons.
There’s a few melee ranged kits, So you use bombs, a toolkit or a flamethrower to pretend to be one of the melee ‘cool kids’ but it’s just not the same.

At least until HoT brings the hammers down.

Edit:
As for “meta” endgame stuff, people have a min/max mentality when it comes to some things, so everything that isn’t 100% optimal somehow gets seen as “worthless”

As a mesmer, you’re perfectly viable sticking to ranged gear. You don’t HAVE to use a sword. You’ll likely want a more phantasm focused build than a shatter one at range though, I think. The phantasms on GS and Staff are both solid damage dealers.

The thing though is staff/GS is kind of a wonky combination because GS is more power based and Staff is more condition based. If you want both, a stat set like rampager might work, though you’d be very glassy. (All the glassiness of Zerker with none of the hype)

Mesmers have really cool support skills, so you’ll be focusing more on timing reflects and things like that rather than pumping out straight melee damage.

Actually GS is bad dps but it’s our only ranged. Staff is only used for shatter builds. It is also more condition oriented. Do not use staff in PvE for phantasm builds. Mesmer should almost always use GS and sword/focus. Or sword/focus and sword/sword. The up time for reflect through traits is one of the best things mesmer has to offer.