Guild Wars 2

The damage of melee vs ranged weapons was balanced around a risk vs reward system. Because melee fights up close they have more trouble reaching the target and are in greater danger when fighting they are given a damage boost over ranged which can attack at a distance resulting in lower risk and more attack time.

This seems well balanced in PvP, but this method of balancing is flawed for PvE content where the risk of attacking and attack up-time is often close for both ranged and melee. This cannot be more evident than with “stacking” where players huddle in a ball next to the enemy and kill it safer and more efficiently than if they spread out.

I feel this is something that needs to be addressed. Either the risk of attacking in melee range needs to be increased to an appropriate level, or the damage gap between ranged and melee needs to be shortened to appropriately reflect the risk and attack up-time differences between the two.

Good thing ranged characters can swap to their melee weapon for more up front damage potential and then swiftly switch back to ranged after taking some damage to deal sustained damage from a distance.

Also, their is no avoiding specialized ways to take down mobs fast. Stacking is just the simplest and easy to execute. The real challenge of PvE comes in boss fights, where stacking is often suicide. In this case, ranged weapons are balanced just fine.

I think the balance between melee and ranged damage is fine.

If people want to stack and abuse game mechanics so they can farm their gold that’s fine by me. It doesn’t affect me anyways.

No ranged damage is worse i dont think there is balance at all in terms of DPS. However it is balanced because ranging allows you to be lazy. Also stacking is not abusing game mechanics its just being smart. Personally i find ranging to be a bad idea in most cases because its lazy. if it did about the same amount of damage as melee than sure fine stay behind and spam 1. But for the most part its not even close to melee damage. (see longbow/ bear ranger vs. sword warhorn or gs mesmer vs sword/focus or s/p mesmer)

again stacking is not abusing game mechanics because for example if they didnt want you to be able to melee the spider in ac they could have just had it do the poison aoe even when you stack.

also Lupi melee greater risk than ranging lupi. Ranging and stacking on the mage crusher has less risk than melee stacking. Spider in AC wipes groups all the time when they dont know how to dodge or use wall so theirs a lot of risk in that. TA you stack a lot for the adds but trying to stack on malrona takes alot of coordination and theres alot of risk. Stacking in TA u/u and TA f/u is also risky for pugs. Maybe you should try to do these dungeons before commenting on them with a clear lack of information.

The big thing people seem to miss is that meleeing champions and dungeons in full glass cannon gear is easy… if everyone else is doing it.

But if you go to melee a boss while everyone else hangs back at max range and just snipes the enemy, you’ll quickly find that it is actually very dangerous, and very difficult to do. For one, unless the AI gets wonky the boss will target you immediately. Second, no one else is nearby to heal or buff, so you are on your own as far as support goes. Third, the boss lives longer, and gets to do a whole lot more damage as a whole. Particularly to you. Fourth, no one else is brave enough to run in and res you if they’re all hanging back and shooting, so you’ll often find yourself defeated because the players were too afraid to run up and help you.

It is a pretty big risk. It pays off well, though, because every class sans engineer can do some wickedly high damage in melee range. Best part is, everyone is close by, so you can use blast finishers and combo fields to your hearts content.

NOTE: engineers do not have a true melee weapon.

No, the balance is just fine. It is quite easy to see incoming attacks at range, in melee chaos, often not so much. Not to mention you can get out of the danger zone completely quite easily if you are ranged and in danger.

Zhaitan.2578:

Also, their is no avoiding specialized ways to take down mobs fast. Stacking is just the simplest and easy to execute. The real challenge of PvE comes in boss fights, where stacking is often suicide. In this case, ranged weapons are balanced just fine.

If all monsters were like those challenging bosses we wouldn’t have a problem at all. However a large potion of monsters, bosses included, lack the ability to sufficiently pressure attackers. Stacking is a result of this lack of risk involved, and when risk is what damage is balanced around, you have an issue.

Furthermore, there are 2 other factors that create issues with this risk vs reward system:

Enemies stand completely still and do not try to take specific action against melee attackers (such as moving away or using CC), leading to nearly equal attack up-times for both ranged and melee. In PvP, which damage seems to be balanced around, melee attackers constantly have to close the distance from their target, and this is not present in much of PvE.

Ranged can be put at the same risk as melee by some enemies who’s strength comes primarily from ranged attacks, which when combined with the above issue, can create equal risk for both ranged and melee.

champ.7021:

also Lupi melee greater risk than ranging lupi. Ranging and stacking on the mage crusher has less risk than melee stacking. Spider in AC wipes groups all the time when they dont know how to dodge or use wall so theirs a lot of risk in that. TA you stack a lot for the adds but trying to stack on malrona takes alot of coordination and theres alot of risk. Stacking in TA u/u and TA f/u is also risky for pugs. Maybe you should try to do these dungeons before commenting on them with a clear lack of information.

That’s only a few examples of bosses, all of which put higher risk to melee attackers than the majority of dungeon monsters. Go through the rest and you’ll see that many do not put sufficient risk on melee range attackers.

Honestly, I started a thief in this game, because the idea.. the premise of stabbing things and dipping out afterward? Was an exciting concept for me. I wanted to STAB things. Not SHOOT things, STAB.. THINGS.

STABBITY. STAB? Stab. o.o

:D

Many fights, Jormag, Teq, and others unmentioned.. simply do not allow for a player to adhere to a melee playstyle. Basically you’re delegated to shut the frack up and go smack on adds, if you wish to participate in this event, with this particular weapon and/or build.

I’m personally disgusted with mechanics such as this. It shows a distinct lack of programming and conceptual development of a boss fight. It forces players to stack up on top of each with ranged weaponry and skills, and makes it more difficult (even with a high end system) to see past other players and dodge pertinent mechanics that can one-shot you or disrupt your ability to engage in said bossfight.

The Secret World is one example, Ultima Online.. and a variety of games that could be mentioned have too frequently featured bossfight mechanics that either punish or completely shut down players that enjoy playing content face-to-face vs. sitting back and “safely” performing said encounter.

I regret having myself and my fiancee invest any money into this game at all. It had so much potential, and the developers have a ton of heart put into this game, but this particular imbalance being so prevalent in this game, just makes it UNFUN for me. I could complain about a few other things that are mostly quality of life problems in the game.. but the ultimate straw that has broken my back is being pigeonholed into a playstyle that I cannot enjoy.

Good luck to this community, and a noteworthy bro-nod to the developers. I’m very much looking forward to checking out Wildstar and perhaps even EQ Next, with my fingers tightly crossed.

i don’t care what people do in pve. it doesn’t affect me.

More knockbacks. Oh yeah! ^^

No seriously, they really should have more knockbacks. Mobs literally allow players to stack next to them for an extended period. There is no “Oh kitten, I’m loosing HP at 5% a second?!” thought in them. For a player that mean knock foes back or dodge, but no the mob just stand there like a fool.

Some bosses like Alpha is even designed entirerly around people stacking on top of him – his attacks only hit ranged characters.

Lupicus has attacks that are only used if people range, and attacks that are only used if people melee. More bosses should be designed like this. Combination of anti-melee and anti-range.

Go do high levels fractals and tell me how ranged vs melee is balanced.