Guild Wars 2

@Punjoke:

Just curious. What setup were you using for your ranger? I specced for precision and vigor and had no probs running a melee ranger. With a vigor build I was able to swoop in, deal great damage with Maul, and keep myself alive with the daze and block skills. When the danger got hot, I had plenty of vigor to dodge out and swoop back in repeatedly. MH sword was just as easy thanks to the #2 skills, Serpent’s, and the evasion and cripple skills on my OH dagger. Low CDs, too.

Gaia, I would instead ask you, how many PvE instance bosses have you successfully cleared using that setup? I did run into one other Ranger with a very successful 2H ‘tank’ build, but it only worked against Story bosses.

Rangers are pretty good at Evading, yes, but other classes can manage their Endurance just like we can. Guardians, for instance, get Vigor whenever they crit, rather than when they use a healing skill, AND their dodge rolls will heal the entire group. They are also rewarded for being low Endurance, whereas Rangers are rewarded for being max Endurance. Effectively, as a Guardian evades damage, his group actually gets stronger, whereas when a Ranger evades damage, the group gets weaker. Warriors and Guardians can inflict multiple stuns/blinds that have no conditional requirements such as positioning and can actually completely prevent a boss from doing any melee damage throughout a fight if coordinated in tandem with each other. These skills are just as effective even if the boss is trying to attack somebody else, whereas the Rangers evasive skills like Serpent’s Strike can only protect themselves.

Rangers and Thieves do have A skill here and there, of course, but like you said, they are forced to duck in and out while a Guardian or Warrior does not have to. Instead they can stay in melee, completely mitigating one-shot attacks again and again through chained blinds and stuns, all the while doing consistent damage AND providing superior group utility.

We did get through all of the dungeons with my Ranger and my Thief, remember – and while I did resort to ranged, my friend really did try to melee as much as he could. Problem was, it was very punishing on him, and it actually hindered the group. There was simply nothing that he, as a melee Thief, could offer the group that a melee Warrior, Guardian, or Mesmer could not do better, while offering several more benefits on top of it.

Boone.7132

If you step up to a boss you will get killed in short order, even using blinds, stuns, dodging, etc liberally. You find yourself stepping out melee range just to let your skills recharge.

I’ve had this experience in AC dungeon and on champion mobs. Defensive powers don’t reset quickly enough, you run around circle kiting. Abysmal design imho. Unless there’s some secret way that Arenanet intended people to spec to play tankier? To which I would ask, “Why do we have to spec a particular way?”, and “why can’t everybody from that class do that thing by default?”. Or is this something to do with this new spaced-out class design (freedom to choose) we’ve had imposed upon us?

You are doing it wrong. You clearly don’t know how to play effectively duo to your lack of playing the game or testing or maybe something else. It is doable to play in melee and it is rewarding when you are able to because you deal more damage than the others and you also have the chance to use cc immidietly without big travel / animation time.

TIPP: Don’t tank hits with your pure hp. Use Combofields to generate shields / regen / retaliation. Speak with your team so they can set these combo fields up.

OP said that range has it easier than melee.

You all went out of your way to try and explain to OP how to play melee, by using combos/abilities/toughness, when his point was range doesn’t need to do any of that stuff to be effective.

Is the game really required to make melee and ranged the same level of difficulty in all areas?

In general PvE (not dungeons) it is easy to play melee e.g. as a warrior I can just rush at stuff and start whacking away with Hundred Blades. It doesn’t require a lot of thought and strategy, but it is fun.

I haven’t done a lot of dungeons but in the ones I did I just turned myself into a ranged class by equipping a longbow. Problem solved!

veritech.1048:

OP said that range has it easier than melee.

You all went out of your way to try and explain to OP how to play melee, by using combos/abilities/toughness, when his point was range doesn’t need to do any of that stuff to be effective.

Not really. This is only true if the mob is attacking someone else aka your melee. If you were all ranged the mob would still come after someone and that person would be either kiting or dodging just the same. Whoever is doing the dodging and abilities to keep the aggro and essentially tie the mob up be it range or melee is essentially what’s causing everyone else to be able to pew pew.

I’m not sure how to respond to the idea of all classes being able to melee effectively. If we make it so all classes including the cloth ones can get in melee and be effective I’m not sure how you can do that without either lowering damage significantly in effect making warriors and guardians boring because there would be no threat to them. Seems like you would have to somehow make it so wearing armor doesn’t matter or something which seems like a bad idea. Seriously though who rolls a cloth or leather class and expects to be able to tank hits and wreck shop in melee besides maybe thieves?

Proeliator.8740:

veritech.1048:

OP said that range has it easier than melee.

You all went out of your way to try and explain to OP how to play melee, by using combos/abilities/toughness, when his point was range doesn’t need to do any of that stuff to be effective.

Not really. This is only true if the mob is attacking someone else aka your melee. If you were all ranged the mob would still come after someone and that person would be either kiting or dodging just the same. Whoever is doing the dodging and abilities to keep the aggro and essentially tie the mob up be it range or melee is essentially what’s causing everyone else to be able to pew pew.

I’m not sure how to respond to the idea of all classes being able to melee effectively. If we make it so all classes including the cloth ones can get in melee and be effective I’m not sure how you can do that without either lowering damage significantly in effect making warriors and guardians boring because there would be no threat to them. Seems like you would have to somehow make it so wearing armor doesn’t matter or something which seems like a bad idea. Seriously though who rolls a cloth or leather class and expects to be able to tank hits and wreck shop in melee besides maybe thieves?

Though I do not have a specific problem with melee in this game (and I currently play a D/D Thief at level 80), I do disagree with your point.

Sure as a range you will have to kite and use CC while attacking an enemy if you do not have a melee class ’tanking. However, it is a lot easier to kite around something while firing your weapon or casting and not get hit than it is to melee / dodge and not get hit. (I also have a staff ele at level 45 with which I kite /cast frequently).

In essence, the OP was correct in saying that range is easier than melee. Though melee is much more fun!

I dont mind difficulty as melee (though a few more “make ranged run round like headless chicken” moves from bosses would be nice!), but I mind low health mobs for DEs so that ranged aoe them down before melee can get in close and get credit. Esp problem for guardian who has no real ranged options.

Cameirus I know so difficult being a guardian sometimes

I think melee is pretty good as is right now, MUCH better then what Anet had it for BWE1

I play a warrior as my main and I think I do pretty good in melee. I usually go with hammer/twin axes/or dual swords. If I’m going up against a champion or elite I usually will go in melee until I start to lose about half health then I dodge roll backwards, switch to rifle, unload a few shots, then go back into melee.

You can play melee just fine but you can’t just stand there and keep taking damage you HAVE to move. Sure some bosses can 1 or 2 shot you no matter how many health points or armor you have, but that isn’t all the time.

Right now at level 60 i have my traits 15 in strength, 15 in tactics, and maxed out in defense. Been working pretty well so far for me in melee.

this is especially true with Guardians, they dont have many ranged abilities (only two weapons with limited range), a low level Guardian in WvW can feel that isnt helping his team because he cant reach the enemy archers up in the towers. A guardian may shine when a lot of friends are near, but the buffs dont last long, and some abilities requires that the guardian stand still. A low level Warrior can shoot from a far with a bow or a gun, and do a pretty decent amount of AoE suppressing fire.

I think that the problem wouldn’t be half as bad if encounters weren’t designed the way they are.

Take CM Story for example, the first boss. His abilities are AoE Melee one-shot, mid-range flame AoE, and a rocket shot that can “shotgun” if you stand too close. And of course, an melee AA. The ENTIRE fight punishes you for trying to be melee, because if you fail to avoid a single attack you end up instagibbed, on the floor, with fire burning you as you try to recover. Meanwhile, at range? The instagib can’t reach that far, the rockets are actually ignorable if only singles hit you, and you can just get out of range of the fire with ease.

And then there’s Brangoire. That fight is straight up IMPOSSIBLE to melee in because spiders will just swarm you if you try to dance around Brangoire, his normally negligible AA can shotgun you, and he has a melee AoE fear that can throw you into a wall, making you easy prey for the spiders. Meanwhile, any ranged with some form of swiftness can just kite away from the spiders while smacking Brangoire, effectively allowing you to completely ignore two parts of the fight (spiders, fear).

I prefer the “singles you out” bosses because those tend to pick a target, leap to them, and then combo them into submission (eg: TA Story, 2nd boss). That’s ok, because even though melee is still more dangerous (swing arcs) it’s not like ranged is at an absurd advantage. Additionally, Ralena/Vassar is reasonably fair because when they’re together, they have an anti-projectile and knockback auras respectively, so you’re forced to head into melee. Even Adelbern is reasonable because he hauls everyone close.

DusK.3849:

Elthurien.8356:

I have no problem as a melee Thief in dungeons, PvE or WvW. I use my utilities
to blind, stun and daze to completely avoid damage, If I get aggro I take measures to lose aggro and continue to melee while controlling my incomming damage with smoke and avoidance. Melee is more challenging but it is far more enjoyable experience because of this.

Gentlemen, this is how you play a melee class. Take heed, especially if you’re playing thief. He knows what’s up.

too bad blind and CC doesn’t really work on champions and above, and even the instance trash can oneshot you in melee.

nice theory tho for everything up to veteran (which you can usually solo, so…)

I don’t have a problem with it in PvE, other than you can exclusively be ranged but you can’t exclusively be melee.

In sPvP though, because such a huge portion of conditions seem designed to stop melee, this does incredibly narrow the amount of viable builds melee users can run. Freeze, immobilize, cripple, stun, daze, fear, launching, knockdowns, etc all null melee damage. They do complicate ranged damage, but they don’t mitigate or otherwise deny it completely. If you plan on running melee, prepare to be looking at the one or two skills that can give you stability, ALL the time. Want to bring that banner? Not viable! Want to use these physical control moves? Sorry, you’re loaded up with stability and distance closing moves you NEED because of the absolute tidal wave of control conditions in the game. Not bringing these counters to counters is tantamount to throwing away any chance you had at winning with some professions. Guardians can mitigate these every other second, thieves can just vanish or close distance with a lot of moves, mesmers can… well, you get the idea. It’s a big problem with Warriors, though, since they don’t innately do anything as a counter. Most effective Warrior builds look almost the same and do the same thing, with small variations. But that’s been my experience.

Again, in PvE, it’s not a huge problem, aside from one or two enemies you simply cannot get near because they ooze DPS around them and/or have constant annoying knockbacks.

in pvp i think melee is alright. part shoot, part slash.

in pve quests are alright for melee. i think one issue for me is during boss fights with a ‘one hit death’ move. if youre melee you should be able to withstand something like that. its hand to hand and wearing heavy armor of awesomness, why would they get one shot? let a cloth die. it makes melee feel very underpowered in that sense.

Enemy npcs in mmos have always been more dangerous for melee than ranged because most enemies primarily deliver their damage through melee blows. Thus melee dps are always in the danger zone. This is an irrefutable fact.

I think designers try to circumvent this issue by making melee more ‘hardy’ or giving them more tools to deal with the increased damage. I primarily play a guardian, so most of these tools for my class come in the form of applying aegis, blinding enemies or using damage reduction fields and shouts. However, with the current tuning, it is possible to get 2-shot through a 33% damage reduction field wearing level appropriate gear as a guardian.

I believe there’s nothing wrong with melee having to roll out and use a ranged weapon while defensive skills become available, but if that’s the case, then to balance group class composition (so you can truly bring any combination of people you want to a dungeon), melee must be able to do more burst damage to compensate for their reduced uptime on the enemies.

I think the real issue here is that one-shots can be neigh instantaneous so if you don’t have 100% cover under blinds and blocks, you will not be able to react to the incoming damage. This is NOT fun for melee.

Melee should be forced out of range by high damage, frequent attacks. However, these attacks should be televised so that melee can make strategic use of the dodge mechanics in this game rather than being reduced to a bloody smear by a quick melee attack from a lightning fast enemy. Regular melee swings should be unavoidable under circumstances in which a properly geared melee player will have enough time to roll out of the damage and recover. One-shotting abilities should provide just enough time so that a melee can roll out if they recognize the animation and have reasonable reflexes. This generates a satisfying melee experience that calls on the use of all defensive, offensive, cc and dodging mechanics to survive. It calls on knowledge of monster animations and abilities, and finally requires a player to manage all of their cooldowns and cycle stuns/blinds/blocks to maximize melee uptime before falling back on heals.

A preferable alternative to melee doing massive burst damage and ranged having moderate sustained damage (which can cause issues in pvp) is to just implement mechanics on ALL dungeon enemies that randomly target the ranged or quickly close the distance (rather than only delivering massive melee blows). Thus the ranged will have to be on the move just as much as melee. Having the ranged take enemy attention periodically also relieves pressure off the melee, giving them precious time to reset their cooldowns.

Either melee damage needs to exceed ranged damage by an amount that creates equivalent average damage between melee and ranged sources, or all enemies must have mechanics that put equivalent pressure on ranged players, giving ample breathing room for melee classes.

I believe if monsters had their melee damage toned down just slightly (just enough for melee to stand toe to toe for maybe 2-3) and had televised distance attacks to force ranged classes to move more, it would greatly enrich the combat experience for everyone.

As a habitual melee’er I’ll just agree with most of what is said. Standard trash mobs I can melee just fine what gets annoying is those bosses. If I stay in the fight for a while I end up getting one or two shot. Or if I can take a few shots I’m usually crippled and there would be almost no way of getting out. Next to that many bosses just stand on top of the dead melee guys preventing rezing.

A few recommendations:
Much more mobile bosses: Giants just stand around and one shot anything close, I see so many people needing rez’ing because that thing won’t move away. I actually pulled agro from one this weekend and deliberately moved it away so everyone could get rezed. More mobility means ranged have more to fear and we can rez the poor kittens that went melee.

1 hit max from ‘shotgun’ style attacks. I know you are loading those things up so they hurt people at range but if I’m in melee I’ll take all the hits dropping me and the ranged guys just sit back and laugh.

Some type of melee specific condition or significantly better damage: Condition damage is one of the best things we can put out there but I can load up bleed just as well on my rifle as I can on my sword. The actual damage done by going in melee is negligible vs the risk of going down. I’ll just sit back and pew pew a bit but this makes fighting that giant really tedious.

Melee damage mitigation: As a Warrior my best option to mitigate damage is the same as an Elly, don’t be there. How can I not be there and be in melee? I’ve said this many times before but some sort of damage mitigation associated with melee weapons.

This was mentioned in beta was it not? it’s been a known problem for a while, how it made it into live is beyond me. We can only hope something simple comes along change wise to make melee equally viable it’s not as bad as people make out though imho

Gray.9650:

DusK.3849:

Elthurien.8356:

I have no problem as a melee Thief in dungeons, PvE or WvW. I use my utilities
to blind, stun and daze to completely avoid damage, If I get aggro I take measures to lose aggro and continue to melee while controlling my incomming damage with smoke and avoidance. Melee is more challenging but it is far more enjoyable experience because of this.

Gentlemen, this is how you play a melee class. Take heed, especially if you’re playing thief. He knows what’s up.

too bad blind and CC doesn’t really work on champions and above, and even the instance trash can oneshot you in melee.

nice theory tho for everything up to veteran (which you can usually solo, so…)

Instance trash can only one-shot you in melee if you’re standing in one spot while he reels back a power attack. Anything else than that will smack you for a third of your health.

I play a warrior as my main.

things are fine and dandy in the world map, but the very instant I go into a dungeon I am nearly forced to switched to ranged, this is especially true for bosses. Many if not the vast majority of bosses have knockbacks and aoe centered around them and so forth along with many of them doing huge damage. Sometimes it’s hard to watch what they are doing due to their size (like the Nokk and Tazza fight) or there is too many particles and I can’t make out what the heck they are doing.

I switch to my rifle and things go much smoother. Being melee sucks in dungeons.

I’m sorry if I came across as an egotistical kitten I was only trying to help melee players that might not have grasped how melee works in GW2. I don’t see the need for insults though. I guess I didn’t quite grasp the Point of the OP. Back on Topic, many players will gravitate to whatever play style offers the least resistance, in GW2 this is quite obviously anything with a ranged build. I hope melee is never ever made easier but I would welcome ranged difficulty to be increased. If that means mob AI needs tweaking so Mobs switch to ranged when they are crippled or immobilized then that sounds great to me. Melee is a challenge, that’s why I enjoy it, I still switch to shortbow or dual pistols on occasion but I would seriously hate the game if I was always forced into using ranged weapons.

quit my 80 warrior because pve and pvp is trash as a melee and horribly designed.

There is no advantage to being melee.

There is no fun being downed all day.

There is so skill to be melee, you either range or you die.

There is no melee in pvp, you either range or you die.

There is no condition removal for melee, you get immobilized, you die.

It’s just trash and this game favors ranged only, so I am a lvl 5 ranger and the game is actually worth playing now, for the meantime.

Gray.9650:

DusK.3849:

Elthurien.8356:

I have no problem as a melee Thief in dungeons, PvE or WvW. I use my utilities
to blind, stun and daze to completely avoid damage, If I get aggro I take measures to lose aggro and continue to melee while controlling my incomming damage with smoke and avoidance. Melee is more challenging but it is far more enjoyable experience because of this.

Gentlemen, this is how you play a melee class. Take heed, especially if you’re playing thief. He knows what’s up.

too bad blind and CC doesn’t really work on champions and above, and even the instance trash can oneshot you in melee.

nice theory tho for everything up to veteran (which you can usually solo, so…)

The OP made no mention of champions or dungeons. I still melee in dungeons, even on bosses (most of them). It’s a matter of timing, if I pull aggro I dodge out or drop aggro with smoke or stealth. I then switch to a ranged attack until somebody else gets aggro then I switch back to melee and engage because my melee attacks do more damage. I don’t know why I’m bothering to explain myself though, play how you want to play.

Ironangel.1548:

quit my 80 warrior because pve and pvp is trash as a melee and horribly designed.

There is no advantage to being melee.

There is no fun being downed all day.

There is so skill to be melee, you either range or you die.

There is no melee in pvp, you either range or you die.

There is no condition removal for melee, you get immobilized, you die.

It’s just trash and this game favors ranged only, so I am a lvl 5 ranger and the game is actually worth playing now, for the meantime.

I play melee. I find an advantage in being able to take on up to five enemies at the same time and be able to give each of them equal attention, as well as being able to deal greater damage and control to a boss than many classes, especially ranged classes, are capable of. I’m not downed all day because I don’t suck. There is an immense amount of skill required to play melee effectively, notably regarding situational skill use, placement, and use of damage mitigation, things that people completely disregard because they mistakenly believe that walking into a fight with a greatsword means that you’re supposed to stand in one spot, take every hit, and do as much damage as possible. I’ve killed significantly more players in PvP than have killed me, and many of them were ranged characters; I did this using both damage and control effectively. There is condition removal for melee, just because you choose not to use it doesn’t mean it exists; tell me what profession you play and I’ll gladly list all condition removal utility skills available for that profession.

TL;DR: L2P.

melee is bad, stop defending bad design.

Ironangel.1548:

melee is bad, stop defending bad design.

You’re bad, stop blaming the game for you being bad.

WvW is primarily a ranged fight. There is no argument against so. Most of the time in large scale battles anyone scuffling into Melee will get killed.

But think of this. The numbers are equal. One team is coordinated and has enough balls to charge into melee. Does it matter, now?

(This is also assuming it’s one team versus one team in an open field, not Castle, swords can’t hit people up in Castles/Towers, and we’ll leave it that way.)

Tyqer.6413:

WvW is primarily a ranged fight. There is no argument against so. Most of the time in large scale battles anyone that’s bad scuffling into Melee will get killed.

Fixed that for you, because I prove that point wrong every single time I play WvW. I wreck in melee. I’m in a guild full of adamant WvWers, more so than me, many of whom also wreck in melee. If so many people are seeing success, and you’re having trouble, the problem’s most likely between your keyboard and your chair.

I understand if ranged is more your playstyle, but that by no means somehow indicates that melee is broken. My notches beg to differ.

I am a mesmer wearing cloth and I melee/range half and half, depending on my health bar. I once dueled a champion mob with a guardian, and the guardian kept dying while I had to keep rezzing him, even though we were both meleeing. I was just puzzled…

Are some of you guys just auto attacking with no utility skills? Like I saw some warriors with 5 signets.

IMHO, cloths wearers have better dps in melee range, but can only wear cloths, why? This is clearly bias against melee casters.

DusK.3849:

Tyqer.6413:

WvW is primarily a ranged fight. There is no argument against so. Most of the time in large scale battles anyone that’s bad scuffling into Melee will get killed.

Fixed that for you, because I prove that point wrong every single time I play WvW. I wreck in melee. I’m in a guild full of adamant WvWers, more so than me, many of whom also wreck in melee. If so many people are seeing success, and you’re having trouble, the problem’s most likely between your keyboard and your chair.

I understand if ranged is more your playstyle, but that by no means somehow indicates that melee is broken. My notches beg to differ.

No I run melee in WvW as well, it’s just that in an extremely large scale battle with everyone shooting whatever is closest to them, if you’re the single person closest to about 50 others, you’re going to die. Melee does wreck, but in the instance of extremely large scale it doesn’t really work unless (as I suggested) everyone does it.