Guild Wars 2

It seems like every group event, and dungeon I have participated in heavily favors ranged players.

Is there any advantage to playing melee character at all?

Has Arena Net addressed this problem at all?

When most of the mobs can slaughter you with three or less attacks going ranged is often preferred in dungeon or group event situations.
Imho, they should tone a bit down the damage dealt by enemies for melee range to become viable.
Sure, you can dodge, but after stamina is depleted you can’t and an healing skill won’t just save you.

UnicornViolet.3081:

It seems like every group event, and dungeon I have been in heavily favors ranged players.

Is there any advantage to playing melee character at all?

Has Arena Net addressed this problem at all?

I take it your new to the game?

Melee is harder often more so for new players, but you do a lot more Damage. ((and in things like the Fractals there are mobs that will reflect projectiles))

you often have to be more active as a Melee use’er but when you understand the game better it becomes much easyer.

I run a sword and shield warrior and only use my Riffle for bit of extra damage if I am forced to fall back. I would say though if you have the option to always have both on you.
UNLESS you are extramly good at running a specialized build

Hermes.7014:

When most of the mobs can slaughter you with three or less attacks going ranged is often preferred in dungeon or group event situations.
Imho, they should tone a bit down the damage dealt by enemies for melee range to become viable.

its not that much of a problem for Vet players

It is an incredibly anti-melee game in PvE

I get that melee is supposed to be a higher risk-reward but the scale is just completely off.

90% of fights in this game are a snooze-fest for ranged combat and can easily be beat by avoiding the red circles.

Melee have to not only avoid the red circles through a clusterkitten of particle effects, they must also observe the boss animations for any sort of 360 melee swings or choreographed attacks and avoid their auto attacks which sometime trigger within 0.5 seconds.

And all that while the boss randomly switches aggro targets every 5 seconds.

Totally balanced.

The biggest joke is the number of abilities that ONLY target melees and that ranged simply don’t have to worry about.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

UnicornViolet.3081:

It seems like every group event, and dungeon I have been in heavily favors ranged players.

Is there any advantage to playing melee character at all?

Has Arena Net addressed this problem at all?

I take it your new to the game?

Melee is harder often more so for new players, but you do a lot more Damage. ((and in things like the Fractals there are mobs that will reflect projectiles))

you often have to be more active as a Melee use’er but when you understand the game better it becomes much easyer.

I run a sword and shield warrior and only use my Riffle for bit of extra damage if I am forced to fall back. I would say though if you have the option to always have both on you.
UNLESS you are extramly good at running a specialized build

I don’t think you understand the meaning of balance. When one play-style requires an enormous amount of effort, and the other doesn’t, the game is not balanced. This is similar to comparing an Arcane Mage to a Frost Mage in the World of Warcraft. Both are viable, but an Arcane Mage will always mop the floor with a Frost Mage with the press of one button.

Secondly, for killing trash mobs, melee might be able to out-dps ranged, but in group events, boss fights etc. ranged strongly pull ahead. This is due to the fact that ranged players have 100% uptime while these alleged “pro” melee players typically spend about 50% of the fight waiting to regain health / resources so that they can run back in and hit the champion / boss two more times before running back out to stand next to the ranged players who are chipping away the entire time.

Dee Jay.2460:

It is an incredibly anti-melee game in PvE

I get that melee is supposed to be a higher risk-reward but the scale is just completely off.

90% of fights in this game are a snooze-fest for ranged combat and can easily be beat by avoiding the red circles.

Melee have to not only avoid the red circles through a clusterkitten of particle effects, they must also observe the boss animations for any sort of 360 melee swings or choreographed attacks and avoid their auto attacks which sometime trigger within 0.5 seconds.

And all that while the boss randomly switches aggro targets every 5 seconds.

Totally balanced.

The biggest joke is the number of abilities that ONLY target melees and that ranged simply don’t have to worry about.

Most boss red circle abilities don’t target melee nor do most ‘randomly switch every 5 seconds’

Dee Jay.2460:

It is an incredibly anti-melee game in PvE

I get that melee is supposed to be a higher risk-reward but the scale is just completely off.

90% of fights in this game are a snooze-fest for ranged combat and can easily be beat by avoiding the red circles.

Melee have to not only avoid the red circles through a clusterkitten of particle effects, they must also observe the boss animations for any sort of 360 melee swings or choreographed attacks and avoid their auto attacks which sometime trigger within 0.5 seconds.

And all that while the boss randomly switches aggro targets every 5 seconds.

Totally balanced.

The biggest joke is the number of abilities that ONLY target melees and that ranged simply don’t have to worry about.

Yeah, honestly, I kind of wish when a player had a melee weapon equipped that it gave him an aura similar to the defensive stance that Warriors in World of Warcraft have. Basically reducing incoming damage by a significant amount, because this is ridiculous. It’s a fun game, and I like having the option to play ranged even as a traditional melee class, but I -don’t- like not having the option to melee without seriously gimping my contribution to my group.

Yeah, I have to agree. I don’t think being a “veteran” player (how can you be a vet of a game that’s less than 6 months old?? hmm…) factors into it, really.

The game is melee hell. Rift was like this for the first year as well: the mechanics were absolutely punishing to melee, while the ranged people simply ran out of the way between point A and B, back and forth (not unlike dodging red circles). The development team finally made some adjustments to correct this, and melee became far more balanced in combat.

Personally, I see a lot of the same issues here. There is no real benefit to being in melee versus being ranged; in fact, most of the time, you’re a detriment to the party because you spend all your time dodging and kiting damage instead of dealing it.

This is the main reason I rolled all my alts as ranged classes. It’s frustrating, because I love the idea of being in melee, but in practice, it’s more frustrating than the alternative of leveling another character to 80 and gearing them out.

That’s because purple unicorns are ranged fighters.

Jokes aside, in DE’s, you’re at a disadvantage because of tagging (since you got to close the gap as well).

Dungeons are unforgiving for pure glass cannons as well.

As a Hammer / Dual Mace Warrior, I don’t often have problems with Dungeons. In DE’s though I find myself swapping to Greatsword for Bladetrail to tag mobs.

Qid.1937:

Dee Jay.2460:

It is an incredibly anti-melee game in PvE

I get that melee is supposed to be a higher risk-reward but the scale is just completely off.

90% of fights in this game are a snooze-fest for ranged combat and can easily be beat by avoiding the red circles.

Melee have to not only avoid the red circles through a clusterkitten of particle effects, they must also observe the boss animations for any sort of 360 melee swings or choreographed attacks and avoid their auto attacks which sometime trigger within 0.5 seconds.

And all that while the boss randomly switches aggro targets every 5 seconds.

Totally balanced.

The biggest joke is the number of abilities that ONLY target melees and that ranged simply don’t have to worry about.

Most boss red circle abilities don’t target melee nor do most ‘randomly switch every 5 seconds’

Never noticed that too be honest. And I’m not sure I believe it.

Doesn’t change anything about my point though.

Let me just run your through each FotM boss encounter at 20+

Underwater Fractal – Squid boss
Ranged: +Easy to kite the boss to the cages, +ignore stun ability
Melee: -impossible to kite boss properly, – frequent PBoAE stun

Sure, the boss is a pushover and a bore for anyone but it’s a great example of how much easier things are as ranged.

Cliffside – Ancient Cultist
Ranged: Avoid red circles, Dodge Leap Attack
Melee: Avoid Red Circles, Dodge Leap Attack at melee range (much harder), avoid 360 Sweep for about 15k damage, avoid melee auto attack all through particle effect spam

Svanir Fractal – Blizzard and Svanir Dude
Ranged: Stand near fire…pew pew pew, avoid red circles
Melee: Watch frozen stacks, avoid red circles
Boss
Ranged: Avoid Red Circles, outrange frozen breath
Melee: Avoid red circles, watch for frozen breath and retreat if targeted, make sure to not get hit if others are targeted.

Vulcano
Normal Shaman
Ranged: Avoid red circles, dodge fire projectiles
Melee: Avoid Red circles, don’t get hit by a 15k melee knock back that has no real animation and isn’t telegraphed, avoid regular melee attack,
Imbued Shaman
Ranged: Avoid Red circles, dodge Agony Attack (much easier at range), move constantly, DPS adds without dying,
Melee: Avoid Red circles, Dodge Agony Attack (very hard at melee range), Avoid melee-only instant gib sweep attack, constantly move while still DPSing, kill adds without dying, avoid melee auto attack,

While mechanically there sin’t a huge difference between ranged and melee in the fight, melees will constantly get gibbed in the fight because they are susceptible to so much more damage.

PVE not only favors ranged, but ranged AOE. This because aggroing one mob is likely to aggro 2-3 others nearby. End result is that unless you have some kind of AOE (notice that most of the warrior and guardian melee weapons are just that, especially the “beloved” greatsword) your in for a world of hurt.

The whole game devolves into a kite fest, where you run in circles spamming anything AOE that is not ground targeted (because you will just pull the mobs out of that circles before the effect can do its thing).

Melee would seem fine if ranged wasn’t so kitten easy.

This is expected from a game with no trinity system.
Everything seems to be about kiting without it.

UnicornViolet.3081:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

UnicornViolet.3081:

It seems like every group event, and dungeon I have been in heavily favors ranged players.

Is there any advantage to playing melee character at all?

Has Arena Net addressed this problem at all?

I take it your new to the game?

Melee is harder often more so for new players, but you do a lot more Damage. ((and in things like the Fractals there are mobs that will reflect projectiles))

you often have to be more active as a Melee use’er but when you understand the game better it becomes much easyer.

I run a sword and shield warrior and only use my Riffle for bit of extra damage if I am forced to fall back. I would say though if you have the option to always have both on you.
UNLESS you are extramly good at running a specialized build

I don’t think you understand the meaning of balance. When one play-style requires an enormous amount of effort, and the other doesn’t, the game is not balanced. This is similar to comparing an Arcane Mage to a Frost Mage in the World of Warcraft. Both are viable, but an Arcane Mage will always mop the floor with a Frost Mage with the press of one button.

Secondly, for killing trash mobs, melee might be able to out-dps ranged, but in group events, boss fights etc. ranged strongly pull ahead. This is due to the fact that ranged players have 100% uptime while these alleged “pro” melee players typically spend about 50% of the fight waiting to regain health / resources so that they can run back in and hit the champion / boss two more times before running back out to stand next to the ranged players who are chipping away the entire time.

Well its clear to be the most effective your ment to use both

Like i said i use a sword and shield and use a rifle when i back off. No real down time. And higher damage than if i just go range. Short to mid range often offers more control in fights and is some time’s more effective at intorupting heals and other abuilitys

UnicornViolet.3081:

Dee Jay.2460:

It is an incredibly anti-melee game in PvE

I get that melee is supposed to be a higher risk-reward but the scale is just completely off.

90% of fights in this game are a snooze-fest for ranged combat and can easily be beat by avoiding the red circles.

Melee have to not only avoid the red circles through a clusterkitten of particle effects, they must also observe the boss animations for any sort of 360 melee swings or choreographed attacks and avoid their auto attacks which sometime trigger within 0.5 seconds.

And all that while the boss randomly switches aggro targets every 5 seconds.

Totally balanced.

The biggest joke is the number of abilities that ONLY target melees and that ranged simply don’t have to worry about.

Yeah, honestly, I kind of wish when a player had a melee weapon equipped that it gave him an aura similar to the defensive stance that Warriors in World of Warcraft have. Basically reducing incoming damage by a significant amount, because this is ridiculous. It’s a fun game, and I like having the option to play ranged even as a traditional melee class, but I -don’t- like not having the option to melee without seriously gimping my contribution to my group.

Like I said vets don’t have this problem, (i. Dont) you have skills and such that alow you to drasticly avoid or reducing the damage that hits your player

Naoko.7096:

This is expected from a game with no trinity system.
Everything seems to be about kiting without it.

Stuns, blinds, confusion, basically any control or seport abuiltys. Kitting is an option but in some dungeons it is not the most efective and depending on the number of mobs will only get players killed. Often your better of trying to use all your control skills to group the mobs together and burn them down together

Melee combat punishes inexperienced players, that’s all.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Naoko.7096:

This is expected from a game with no trinity system.
Everything seems to be about kiting without it.

Stuns, blinds, confusion, basically any control or seport abuiltys

Most of them lasting one attack or single digit seconds while having cooldown measured in half-minutes or more. End result are periods where everything is on cooldown and you kite kite kite…

TexZero.7910:

Melee combat punishes inexperienced players, that’s all.

So all we need to do is to run the same encounter enough time that we can time our dodges and such on rote?

digiowl.9620:

TexZero.7910:

Melee combat punishes inexperienced players, that’s all.

So all we need to do is to run the same encounter enough time that we can time our dodges and such on rote?

No you have to play the game enough to know the visual ques that tell you when the best time to dodge is. And to know when you have othe players boons efecting you and whats effecting the mob

UnderdogSMO.9428:

digiowl.9620:

TexZero.7910:

Melee combat punishes inexperienced players, that’s all.

So all we need to do is to run the same encounter enough time that we can time our dodges and such on rote?

No you have to play the game enough to know the visual ques that tell you when the best time to dodge is. And to know when you have othe players boons efecting you and whats effecting the mob

Funny, i thought ANet told us to play the game, not the UI

digiowl.9620:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Naoko.7096:

This is expected from a game with no trinity system.
Everything seems to be about kiting without it.

Stuns, blinds, confusion, basically any control or seport abuiltys

Most of them lasting one attack or single digit seconds while having cooldown measured in half-minutes or more. End result are periods where everything is on cooldown and you kite kite kite…

Combat is built for groups. Its true that you can often kill some of this stuff (more so in the open world) but if your group is efectivly stacking and useing there skills this wont be a problem

digiowl.9620:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

digiowl.9620:

TexZero.7910:

Melee combat punishes inexperienced players, that’s all.

So all we need to do is to run the same encounter enough time that we can time our dodges and such on rote?

No you have to play the game enough to know the visual ques that tell you when the best time to dodge is. And to know when you have othe players boons efecting you and whats effecting the mob

Funny, i thought ANet told us to play the game, not the UI

Good thing theres in game effect for all this kitten! It becaums easyer to recognize the more you play.

Yes range (often in the world) is easyer but is not the most effective way to play

digiowl.9620:

TexZero.7910:

Melee combat punishes inexperienced players, that’s all.

So all we need to do is to run the same encounter enough time that we can time our dodges and such on rote?

Lets just take this in another light.

When you first touched a basketball, where you an NBA Allstar like Mike ?
When you first played Chess were you as good as Bobby Fisher ?

Obvious answer is no. You may have had talent but talent without it being honed is wasted. You don’t have to run the same DE over and over but it helps if you play the game and question why you are using certain skills and when you are using them. Thus the whole idea behind the COMBO system. In melee this is even more important. Knowing when to burst finish water fields to gain a spike heal is just one prime example. It’s one that gets lost in team based play. Melee is naturally more hectic and without being able to slow down the combat on the field in your mind and not be erratic you will always have trouble. Thus it punishes inexperienced play.

It however greatly rewards those who are able to remain calm, and plan their actions without having the need to faceroll.

The disparity can be felt most tremendously on glass cannon scholars who choose to go melee. As a mesmer, there is absolutely no way to go full melee on dungeons as compared to pure ‘ranged’ mesmers via GS or Staff. It makes it seems like melee is the ‘alternate’ weapon, with the ranged weapon being the primary in almost every scenario.

Leo Paul.1659:

The disparity can be felt most tremendously on glass cannon scholars who choose to go melee. As a mesmer, there is absolutely no way to go full melee on dungeons as compared to pure ‘ranged’ mesmers via GS or Staff. It makes it seems like melee is the ‘alternate’ weapon, with the ranged weapon being the primary in almost every scenario.

You mean running full zerkers insignia? – Well, yeah. Because glass cannon and melee are not meant to mix. If you run melee you need to use defensive insignia obviously. melee attacks do vastly more than ranged in the first place – swapping to defensive insignia and running melee still yields better DPS than ranging

I run full melee as a mesmer in every explorable and fractal just fine. Melee in this game is fine but it’s highly skill based, you need to time your blocks and interuppts, read the cues, and know when to dodge.

I use a shatter build (Sword/Focus/Staff, with inspiration/glamours as my optional line) with knights insignia gear and boon extension runes/food. By chaining skills right you can maintain chaos armour near permanently, and subsequently near permanent regen/protection/vigor – plus regular blinds, aegis and invulnerability and I can tank better than some guardians I’ve met.

With coordinated team play being a glass cannon melee isnt all that bad. If you have lets say a guardian in your team, he can give your team stability, aegis, protection, healing, all very good skills that are in favor of keeping your glass cannon melees up just long enough to have them deal incredible ammounts of damage. This works on most boss fights in dungeons. Sometimes Melee isn’t viable at all, but every class has acces to a variaty of ranged weapons.
Also a Warrior can for example jump into Melee, dodge the first few attacks, hit endure pain to be invulnerable for 5 seconds, get a 100b in, than swap back to rifle when his HP is getting low, cripple the target and stay at a safe distance again.

Point is, there are many options to make melee work in your favor. After all, melee combat is a good example of high risk, high reward.

Try running a 20+ fractal with 5 guardians. The enemies just give up.

I don’t think this is a valid complaint. Certainly the evidence in the game suggests otherwise. Guild Wars 2 favors adaptability over choosing just melee or just ranged. And it should be this way — you have two weapons at your disposal after all. Requiring players to adapt adds variety and a poses a challenge to the seasoned gamer: what weapon set best suits the current situation. Some bosses are better to go in melee range while others are more effectively damaged via ranged weapons. No one should be able to run up to every mob and melee them while a healer covers their poor game play. That is not GW2.

That being said, you can undoubtedly use melee weapons in most endgame content. I’d like to know exactly how ranged appears to be favored over melee? Where is the evidence? Let’s take a look at some popular dungeons that I am familiar with:

—CoE: you can melee all the trash and bosses with the exception of Subject Alpha. You can probably even melee him if you are good at dodging.
—Arah path 3: you can go melee on everything including giganticus lupicus. Did you see the video of the warrior soloing him with melee weapons?
—HotW: you can use close range weapons on everything with the excpetion of the underwater bosses.
—CM: you can go melee on everything with the exception of the blunderbuss boss.
—Twlight Arbor: players generally use ranged on the nightmare tree. Maybe some have succeeded with melee? I imagine that it is possible.

FotM may be the one exception because of the difficulty scaling in which the bosses damage output increases to the degree that they can one shot you at higher levels. However, I’m currently level 30, play a d/d or s/d elementalist, and have used daggers with little problems on the following bosses: cliffside boss, uncategorazable jumping puzzle robot bosses, champion mole boss, blizzard level berserker boss, and on lower levels mossman, though I now use s/d on him. I do not go with melee weapons on the ice elemental, dredge mining suit, or the fire shaman, though if i could weapon swap as some professions can, I’m sure I would swap and unload a close ranged burst on him, then move out and swap back to ranged.

You have options. I just don’t see how there is really favoritism for one or the other. As far as balanced is concerned, in at least this aspect of the game there seems to be a good deal of it. As for the other parts, well that is an issue to take up on another subforum.

The game doesn’t really teach players how to use their skills defensively. The system in place currently that involves slowly unlocking skills on weapons and unlocking utilities even slower might help people learn what each skill does, but it does nothing to teach people how to use them. Especially the defensive ones.

There needs to be something inserted into the story missions that teaches players how to use the skills that aren’t pure DPS skills. The militia training activities in Claypool teach you to time a block, but there needs to be more than just that. Things to demonstrate explicitly what blindness does and how much damage you avoid by using weakness on opponents and on to more nuanced stuff like deciding when to use a dodge and when to take an attack on the chin.

It’s true.
I’m a melee-only player and even after mastering my classes some PvE fights are impossible to be melee’d all the time – or at least it’ll be more inefficient to do so than switch to ranged.

This is a major design flaw as people are just ranging all the enounters very easily as a workaround, therefore thinking the game is easy.
They really need to adjust this, a mob shouldn’t be a threat only if it’s in melee range and a joke from afar.

Munrock.3092:

The militia training activities in Claypool teach you to time a block

Not sure if it actually does. Last time i poked at that there was virtually no pattern, and no hint about when the attack would be towards you. IMO the supposed block system in this game is too unforgiving towards anyone with less than perfect reaction time and/or connection. The blocks last just a couple of seconds, but have cooldowns 10 times that. Meaning that if you get the timing wrong by even half a second it will hurt or be potentially fatal. End result is that it may not even be worth trying compared to a dodge. And that is before we consider all the shield like effects that are only effective against ranged attacks…

As with most threads here you can safely ignore the L2P posts and certainly anyone designating themselves as a ‘Vet’ player who is unfamiliar with the combat system issues with GW2. In GW2 we have Berzerker armor, but certainly no berzerker archetype professions. More often than not you’ll see berzerker’s here running like a sissy from a fight rather than to a fight if their RezMe flag isn’t already flying.

It is more about combat system design than it is about player skill. It is a problem in GW2 combat and it is one of those glaring problems that you know in your gut is just not right. A melee character built for melee should be able to be played in melee range. It’s also an issue that arises out of the abandonment of the trinity. I’m not saying that the trinity is needed. What I’m saying is that combat in GW2 needs to be given more thought than it has to date. It needs to make sense and not leave you scratching your head. I mean if melee is actually designed to play ranged, then we have a problem. I don’t personally have an an answer for this, but then neither does the L2P crowd. It remains a problem in GW2 combat.

Red Falcon.8257:

It’s true.
I’m a melee-only player and even after mastering my classes some PvE fights are impossible to be melee’d all the time – or at least it’ll be more inefficient to do so than switch to ranged.

This is a major design flaw as people are just ranging all the enounters very easily as a workaround, therefore thinking the game is easy.
They really need to adjust this, a mob shouldn’t be a threat only if it’s in melee range and a joke from afar.

This.

And this “this” is coming from a player who melee soloed Lupicus (which is actually well balanced for both ranged and melee unlike many many other encounters).
Yes, with practice melee is very doable but what practice you need for ranged?

The game feels anti-melee because it IS anti-melee.

Melee is viable but ranged is far too faceroll to justify the dangers of melee.

And there is the obvious point of some fights actually requiring range.

Tell me, is there a fight that requires melee?

Naoko.7096:

This is expected from a game with no trinity system.
Everything seems to be about kiting without it.

This is pretty much the source of the problem. Make a game where damage avoidance is required, what do you think will happen?

Raine.1394:

It’s also an issue that arises out of the abandonment of the trinity. I’m not saying that the trinity is needed. What I’m saying is that combat in GW2 needs to be given more thought than it has to date. It needs to make sense and not leave you scratching your head. I mean if melee is actually designed to play ranged, then we have a problem. I don’t personally have an an answer for this, but then neither does the L2P crowd. It remains a problem in GW2 combat.

It’s one thing I’ve been saying since I bought the game. GW2 is NOT designed around not having a trinity, they just didn’t add a tank or healer. We’re using the typical damage dealer design, that’s designed around having a tank.

While that design works for ranged classes, it just doesn’t work for melee. They’re in front, they have very limited space between them and the mob, they’re going to be taking hits. Melee needs passive heals, stronger damage reduction, and all that other stuff that tanks tend to have if you’re going to build a game around no tanks.

But since everyone is so gung-ho on there will never be a trinity, melee very likely will never get the utility they need since it’ll push them more towards being a “tank”

anti melee?
What if i tell you about reflection?

Are we talking about GW2? A game where warriors and guardians are the best PvE professions and who are wanted in every party?

Really?

Well I see a HUGE difference in nmy melee DPS and ranged dps onmy thief. As a matter of fact i just started yesterday and hit 14 this am and I’m finding that not only am i behind levels for my class quests but I dont have an option for melee at all. I devastate things 1 lvl higher than me using 2 pistols than any melee weapons I usually run in attack 1 time and jump out while in H2H

To be quite honest, the most easiest times I’ve had in dungeons is when we’ve got one or two party members that are just straight melee. Coming from someone who has done almost every single dungeon and FOTM post 20, the game is not anti melee but more punishing against melee who do not take the time to understand how monsters work, and do not understand the general fundamentals of being a melee character in Guildwars 2.

Its almost a Dark Souls approach to melee combat except everything is a lot faster in Guildwars 2. You need to be in the proper mindset as well as being able to detect visual ques in combat.

To answer Rukia’s answer about encounters that are easier in melee. I cannot say “required” but subject alpha is sooooooooo much easier when everyone is in melee range. Moss man is a ton easier to keep track of if he’s kept in place. When the cultist master on cliffside fractal is kept in place by melee, he’s also easier to keep track of. colossus rumblus of AC is a truck ton easier to deal with in melee. The destroyer harpy grawl shaman of that fractal is also mega tons easier with melee that can avoid the lava arrow and the AoE. So many encounters are made trivial by having a few melee for control.

UnicornViolet.3081:

I don’t think you understand the meaning of balance. When one play-style requires an enormous amount of effort, and the other doesn’t, the game is not balanced.

sure it is. as said it’s risk vs reward thing. now, if melee did the same damage as ranged, then I would agree that it’s not balanced. i mean, that’s THE reason why thieves do so much damage, to compensate for the lack of defense.

As a melee Guardian, half melee Ranger, and melee Ele, I disagree entirely.

And hurrah at that mention of Dark Souls. Fantastic game. The combat definitely has its similarities, as I have discussed with my friends on multiple occasions. In Dark Souls, most new players would play almost entirely specced into magic. This is because melee is pretty unforgiving at first. But just like GW2, once you get the feel for it, melee is entirely viable, and most of the time, preferred.

One of my guildies tend to run as a glass cannon GS warrior. He doesn’t die very often at all. He goes down more than the others, but not too often to offset his incredibly high dps. As the Guard, I adjust as I can to keep damage off of him, and if he is going down, he’ll call it out, and we’ll be ready to pop him back up in less than 3secs.

And don’t forget the dodge roll. Use it as a temporary invulnerability rather than to get out of the way.

I think there just needs to be an in depth guide in game during the tutorial (opening personal story) on how to play against group bosses, since these are the ones with the most visual queues to watch for when fighting that I have seen. The “end boss” in the personal story opening doesn’t count since you can technically kill them blind folded.

Maybe change that, have an option when you create a new character to ask the player if they would like to play the “new player” tutorial which will pause the game to give key pointers and walk them through the process of avoiding damage, give details about boons and conditions and support/aoe skills and effective downed state abilities.

For example, the new player chooses this option and they are fighting the end boss, a large red circle appears the game pauses and tells the player what the circle is, and how to dodge by double tapping a direction or using a dodge key and even ask if they would like to set up a dodge key (if one is not currently set up, which is not by default), if they say yes, it would tell them to press a key to bind to dodge and that the fight will continue and to use the dodge feature when the game resumes. Even awarding small XP gains for successfully dodging.

I know it’s hand holding but it would be an option that I think would make the game much more approachable by players who are new to MMOs, or veterans of other MMOs whose combat is so much different than GW2’s.

Let me say the only reason I suggest this is because even at higher level content, which I consider to be level 40+, a player should know all the basics to fighting difficult group encounters and using their abilities in the downed state to be most effective but sadly this is not the case more than you might think.

I know this information exists via the forums, blogs and youtube but a lot of people do not actively seek out this information, for whatever reason.

As for being anti-melee, I agree it seems that melee gets a raw deal but there are so many tools at melee’s disposal for dealing with it and every melee profession has a ranged component alternative and weapon switching is as simple as clicking a button.

This is one of my biggest gripes with GW2, bosses and elite/champion mobs are just not doable with melee. I don’t even use melee most of the time, but this is serious flaw in the gameplay and it irks me.

I agree that a certain finesse is required to solely be devoted to melee’ing while in dungeons, and even in some circumstances WvW. Over time you will get better at it, but there does exist a certain barrier where simply spamming 1-5 with a ranged weapon – with virtually no repercussions in a very tiny area is just lols compared to having to constantly move around and use terrain to escape high damage attacks.

With that said, overall, the game in almost all avenues smiles very kindly to ranged attacks compared to their melee counterparts. This sentiment holds true in most mmo’s as it is, but that failed standard doesn’t mean it needs to be present in Guild Wars 2.

There are balances that can be made, through tuning of certain bosses/elite mobs that won’t throw off balancing of WvW/sPvP. And hopefully Anet is considering such options. Players will still get by with the way things are, but I can say after having tried rifle / longbow out as a warrior, I can focus on watching a movie while engaged with most dungeon bosses. The problem is more broad than it simply being poor AI.

UnicornViolet.3081:

Secondly, for killing trash mobs, melee might be able to out-dps ranged, but in group events, boss fights etc. ranged strongly pull ahead. This is due to the fact that ranged players have 100% uptime while these alleged “pro” melee players typically spend about 50% of the fight waiting to regain health / resources so that they can run back in and hit the champion / boss two more times before running back out to stand next to the ranged players who are chipping away the entire time.

Would you please inform me on what bosses this behavior occurs?

Jormag? Lupicus maybe? What else?

I agree with the OP. There is no reward for the extra risk you take (or skill you need) for using a melee weapon in PVE.

What makes it worse for me is that I want to avoid any attack when I want it. The endurance system forces me to play punching bag as melee half the time (mob dependant). Which makes defensive traits mandatory if you want to play melee. This feels like some weird compromise between oldschool tabbased combat and twitchbased combat.