Guild Wars 2

Draknar.5748:

And yet a good longbow Warrior will own me every time in PvP. As well as a good condition build Necro, and I consider myself an above average PvPer.

Which points to ranged v. melee being at a better balance in PvP than it is in PvE.

coglin.1867:

What in the world would possess you to mention warrior sword? You were very specific in your comments about ranged, I cannot grasp the point in so strongly contradicting yourself.

Again, your not making any sense at all in reference to condition damage. You have not offered any facts to justify further gimping condition builds in PvE. I on the other hand offered a much more logical alternative, and you shoot it down. Because of this, I am not entirely certain you want to solve an actual problem, it really appear to me as you simply are trying to promote a change that will suit your personal needs with a specific build on a specific profession.

I referenced warrior’s sword and ranger’s longbow as a counterargument that condition builds are tied to ranged weapons because they are not. I do not want to reduce effectiveness of condition damage builds in pve, only to make snares removable by enemies.

There’s also an issue when Jon Peters mentioned that they are working on improving condition builds viability in pve which should be done long time ago but pvp viability and rather faceroll character of said builds is what makes those builds harder to balance in pve without completely destroying half of the game.

haviz.1340:

coglin.1867:

What in the world would possess you to mention warrior sword? You were very specific in your comments about ranged, I cannot grasp the point in so strongly contradicting yourself.

Again, your not making any sense at all in reference to condition damage. You have not offered any facts to justify further gimping condition builds in PvE. I on the other hand offered a much more logical alternative, and you shoot it down. Because of this, I am not entirely certain you want to solve an actual problem, it really appear to me as you simply are trying to promote a change that will suit your personal needs with a specific build on a specific profession.

I referenced warrior’s sword and ranger’s longbow as a counterargument that condition builds are tied to ranged weapons because they are not. I do not want to reduce effectiveness of condition damage builds in pve, only to make snares removable by enemies.

There’s also an issue when Jon Peters mentioned that they are working on improving condition builds viability in pve which should be done long time ago but pvp viability and rather faceroll character of said builds is what makes those builds harder to balance in pve without completely destroying half of the game.

That would make sense if anyone suggested they were tied together, but no one did, so it doesn’t make sense.

As well, it is as if you completely ignore the easy solutions that are already in place, simply because it isn’t what you said. If you want mobs to ignore snares, you give them defiant, you do not give them a mechanic that completely gimps a large amount of builds.

coglin.1867:

That would make sense if anyone suggested they were tied together, but no one did, so it doesn’t make sense.

As well, it is as if you completely ignore the easy solutions that are already in place, simply because it isn’t what you said. If you want mobs to ignore snares, you give them defiant, you do not give them a mechanic that completely gimps a large amount of builds.

I misunderstood you at the beginning so that is invalid now.

Defiant does not ignore or influence snares in any way and needs to be completely revamped to increase the viability of control skills. Adding snares resistance on top of control resistance is a really bad move to make here.

haviz.1340:

Defiant does not ignore or influence snares in any way

umm, actually, yes, it does.

I still don’t think range risk is low enough. So I will say this again.

-Many melee users can negate range instantly with numerous gap closers (WvW, PvP)

-There is faaarrrrr lower risks in stacking, pulling, meleeing high difficulty dungeon mobs.

Ive always held that melee should have a higher burst capacity, whereas range should have better sustained damage. So over a span of 30 seconds both do the same damage, the melee is just front loaded.

Edit: That being said, the increased damage to range (mesmers GS and Rangers LB) should be removed.

coglin.1867:

umm, actually, yes, it does.

I am sorry to inform it does not. You can check the wiki or test in-game.

coglin.1867:

haviz.1340:

Defiant does not ignore or influence snares in any way

umm, actually, yes, it does.

Are you confusing Defiant with Unstoppable? I seem to remember seeing perma cripple or chill on some of the melee bosses with Unshakeable/Defiant. Those are snares as far as I’m concerned.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Control_effect

Each stack of defiant is removed by a control effect. When the stacks are gone, they are no longer immune until they rebuff defiant. Caused by Unshakable. Sink, float and Basilisk venom are the only CC effect that ignore the effect, or the wiki says they ignore the defiant buff anyway.

coglin.1867:

Each stack of defiant is removed by a control effect. When the stacks are gone, they are no longer immune until they rebuff defiant. Caused by Unshakable. Sink, float and Basilisk venom are the only CC effect that ignore the effect, or the wiki says they ignore the defiant buff anyway.

Cripple and chill (which are snares) are not control effects, though.

Control effects: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Control_effect

Cripple and chill are conditions that hinder movement speed and do NOT disable skills like control effects.

Near the top of my “Things I would change about GW2” list is making ranged combat riskier in PvE and buffing ranged dps as a result.

Plenty of other MMOs have been able to pull this off. It’s a shame that so few enemies do anything really threatening to ranged and it’s a shame that you have to hold your group back just to use a ranged weapon (unless you’re a grenade engi).

Hedgehog in the fog.1053:

Ive always held that melee should have a higher burst capacity, whereas range should have better sustained damage. So over a span of 30 seconds both do the same damage, the melee is just front loaded.

Edit: That being said, the increased damage to range (mesmers GS and Rangers LB) should be removed.

There’s a huge failing in your understanding here. It’s not increased damage at range, it’s dramatically reduced damage as they lose range. At least, with the ranger LB that’s the case. This is part of the plethora of issues that plague the ranger.

DouBLe.6084:

Putting yourself in melee range increases your risk, so you get more effective in exchange.

okay, now explain why warrior rifle does more damage than engineer rifle then.

Lightrayne.7829:

coglin.1867:

Each stack of defiant is removed by a control effect. When the stacks are gone, they are no longer immune until they rebuff defiant. Caused by Unshakable. Sink, float and Basilisk venom are the only CC effect that ignore the effect, or the wiki says they ignore the defiant buff anyway.

Cripple and chill (which are snares) are not control effects, though.

Control effects: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Control_effect

Cripple and chill are conditions that hinder movement speed and do NOT disable skills like control effects.

My point exactly. Defiant still ignores cripples, chills, and immobilizes, which are all conditions. As it completely negates those as it does all CC hard or soft, I see no reason to give PvE mobs a general debuff ability of any kind, to effect conditions. In the scenario the OP put it, it would hose damage conditions as well.

Lightsbane.9012:

DouBLe.6084:

Putting yourself in melee range increases your risk, so you get more effective in exchange.

okay, now explain why warrior rifle does more damage than engineer rifle then.

Or warrior longbow outperforming both ranger bows. Or any other conceivable weaponset outperforming ele staff?

Besides, with the current stack/boon/11111 gameplay, melee puts you at far LESS risk than ranged in PvE. In any form of PvP, the gap closers are far more numerous and powerful than any ability to maintain distance.

Ranged damage universally gets the short end of the stick in this game.

stale.9785:

Lightsbane.9012:

DouBLe.6084:

Putting yourself in melee range increases your risk, so you get more effective in exchange.

okay, now explain why warrior rifle does more damage than engineer rifle then.

Or warrior longbow outperforming both ranger bows. Or any other conceivable weaponset outperforming ele staff?

Besides, with the current stack/boon/11111 gameplay, melee puts you at far LESS risk than ranged in PvE. In any form of PvP, the gap closers are far more numerous and powerful than any ability to maintain distance.

Ranged damage universally gets the short end of the stick in this game.

Ele staff has a lot of beef in it, y’know. Arguably the strongest range weapon in the game in terms of raw of dps.

Yenn.9185:

stale.9785:

Lightsbane.9012:

DouBLe.6084:

Putting yourself in melee range increases your risk, so you get more effective in exchange.

okay, now explain why warrior rifle does more damage than engineer rifle then.

Or warrior longbow outperforming both ranger bows. Or any other conceivable weaponset outperforming ele staff?

Besides, with the current stack/boon/11111 gameplay, melee puts you at far LESS risk than ranged in PvE. In any form of PvP, the gap closers are far more numerous and powerful than any ability to maintain distance.

Ranged damage universally gets the short end of the stick in this game.

Ele staff has a lot of beef in it, y’know. Arguably the strongest range weapon in the game in terms of raw of dps.

That’s guardian scepter. Next runner up would be the warrior rifle, then warrior longbow. Ele scepter does more raw damage than the staff does. I think the ele staff out-damages ranger longbow, but I wouldn’t be willing to bet on it.

There’s still the problem that, no matter what ranged weapon you have, you lack the tools to maintain the range. This is most apparent when using the ranger longbow – your damage drops dramatically as opponents close, and every class except for possibly necro can close the gap in 1-2 seconds.

Guardian scepter is certainly a contender assuming your target is huge so that you can land all the hits of #2. Rifle warrior has a good burst so is lb but I don’t they have the dps for sustain engagement.

Comparing ele scepter to staff isn’t even fair. Staff takes the cake followed by LH(melee, just fyi), then maybe scepter. dps test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGALdnDgUE0

I’m not sure about ranger LB, I don’t really use it.

coglin.1867:

Lightrayne.7829:

coglin.1867:

Each stack of defiant is removed by a control effect. When the stacks are gone, they are no longer immune until they rebuff defiant. Caused by Unshakable. Sink, float and Basilisk venom are the only CC effect that ignore the effect, or the wiki says they ignore the defiant buff anyway.

Cripple and chill (which are snares) are not control effects, though.

Control effects: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Control_effect

Cripple and chill are conditions that hinder movement speed and do NOT disable skills like control effects.

My point exactly. Defiant still ignores cripples, chills, and immobilizes, which are all conditions. As it completely negates those as it does all CC hard or soft, I see no reason to give PvE mobs a general debuff ability of any kind, to effect conditions. In the scenario the OP put it, it would hose damage conditions as well.

If only the game supported skills to only affect specific conditions.

Dahkeus.8243:

Near the top of my “Things I would change about GW2” list is making ranged combat riskier in PvE and buffing ranged dps as a result.

Plenty of other MMOs have been able to pull this off. It’s a shame that so few enemies do anything really threatening to ranged and it’s a shame that you have to hold your group back just to use a ranged weapon (unless you’re a grenade engi).

I think boss fights would be a lot more interesting, if they weren’t constantly confined to flat spaces. Imagine a boss fight where ranged players are allowed to climb to higher ground, and attack the enemy from up there (without the boss going invulnerable). Next, give the boss the ability to knock down these vantage points, and allow the people on the ground to CC the boss, to keep him from knocking down those structures. Or maybe the boss has a ranged pull attack, to pull ranged players down to ground level. It would certainly add a whole new dynamic to the combat.

Heck, allow the boss to fly off and continue the battle in the air. Make ranged combat a requirement during some phases. The Shatterer already takes to the air at times, but why not have the boss also fly in circles, while players try to shoot him down? Make ranged combat part of GW2’s combat, and get rid of invulnerable.

Ranged needs far more ways to keep melee from closing. The biggest problem with ranged is that melee doesn’t take enough damage before they can close.

In most systems, melee wouldn’t have more than 50% of health by the time they closed BUT that makes it a fair fight as they are more powerful when that happens.

In short, balance should be based on what percentage of a melee character’s health has to be reduced for the ranged character to win 50/50 of fights once the melee character closes the gap. We are not even close.

One of the big problems is there is not enough CC to stop the melee character dead in their tracks or cripple their movement in a way that they have to rely on another class (not themselves) to clear it.

There really is no rock-paper-scissors element to this game which is one of the biggest challenges. Range and stealth own magic. Magic owns armor. Armor owns range and stealth. Each class is even against other members of its grouping. You have a bag of tricks CC class.

I don’t know, the risk/benefit analysis is just silly. Why would anyone play melee if they didn’t have to? Because its more fun? Why do I want to play range? Because its more fun.

Once again, melee should have front loaded damage, so they can burst, and jump away form the damage. Whereas range should have sustained damage.

The other option is to give range more CC options and make CC a viable option in dungeons and PvE.

Bombsaway.7198:

Ranged needs far more ways to keep melee from closing. The biggest problem with ranged is that melee doesn’t take enough damage before they can close.

In most systems, melee wouldn’t have more than 50% of health by the time they closed BUT that makes it a fair fight as they are more powerful when that happens.

In short, balance should be based on what percentage of a melee character’s health has to be reduced for the ranged character to win 50/50 of fights once the melee character closes the gap. We are not even close.

One of the big problems is there is not enough CC to stop the melee character dead in their tracks or cripple their movement in a way that they have to rely on another class (not themselves) to clear it.

There really is no rock-paper-scissors element to this game which is one of the biggest challenges. Range and stealth own magic. Magic owns armor. Armor owns range and stealth. Each class is even against other members of its grouping. You have a bag of tricks CC class.

You need to look at it beyond a 1v1 PoV.

If you look at WvW, in a large-scale fight ranged characters have a huge advantage on being able to manage the situation better. The massive AoE spam alone gives meleers a hard time getting close to the enemy.

Vayne.8563:

The isn’t isn’t ranged weapons. The issue is survivability.

In most games, melee weapons do more damage, because in most games, melee is more dangerous. In this game with dodges and invulnerability and blocks, people are in less danger meleeing, particularly with the other advantages you’ve listed. I mean if you go down and four people are rezzing you, you’re up in a second.

So the logic that works in other games, melee doing more damage, doesn’t really work in this game.

Sometimes I think the solution is to make ranged and melee do the same kinds of damage, but I still don’t think that would stop people from stacking.

What Anet really needs is some kind of anti-stacking solution.

Unless the risk of melee is sufficiently greater ranged weapons should be brought up to melee damage, or melee damage should be reduced to ranged damage.

Another opinion of mine that I assume won’t be universally popular. lol

Actually in most games melee don’t do more damage, they are able to take more damage or avoid it. It should always be more survivability=less damage, more damage=less survivability. It doesn’t make sense for melee to do more damage and take more damage while ranged do less and take more. Almost every other game has figured this out. A viable way to solve the kiting problem is more gap closers and cc for melee classes. It’s simply stupid when a game makes more than half of the weapons/builds obsolete and forces players to choose something because of the imbalance.

I’m not sure what professions people feel range is weaker than melee, but I don’t feel that way on the Thief, Ele, or Mesmer. If it is an issue for some classes the simplest solution in my mind would be to increase range attacks’ damage at close range to be closer with melee dps.

digiowl.9620:

The “less danger at range” argument may have held up in PVE, if the game had a functional way to manipulate aggro (aka tank). Without it, a ranged attacker may well find himself in melee with a enemy pretty quickly. That is, unless he wants to do the whole Benny Hill routine around the room…

No one is meant to remain stationery in combat, including ranged players, if they were the skills would root them while attacking.

Ranged combat should be discussed in two different aspects: PvE and PvP

PvE: In my honest opinion, before we start to balance the damage between melee and ranged combat we woupd have to fix couple major issues:
-Boon sharing. It’s range should’ve been greatly improved. In current state, with broken Guardian system, you won’t get your buffs if you’re not close or melee ranged. That’s a major fail in game design, because it simply eliminates certain playstyles and weapons from competition.
-Bosses themselves - Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have (at least normal, because Guardian, Warrior duo exists fairly well, often as a trio with Mesmer) trinity. Many people see it as a border which doesn’t allow game PvE to cross the line and bring more advanced tactics than stacking and avoiding red circles. It’s bullkitten. Eliminate Tank from current WoW encounters. And healer, healing him. You know what? Nothing really happens. Because most of the fights are not designed for simple tank’n’spank, bosses still have adds, various abilities, AoEs, tactics which require people to move. Simply adding some AoE cone attacks from time to time should greatly decrease stacking. Boon hate is another thing. Heck, some bosses could also have something like Corrupt Boon.
Something else: having no tank doesn’t mean that boss should attack only by some AoEs without normal attack! Don’t make it one-shot kill, but make players actually take some damage. To prevent overload from Warriors and Guardians, make bosses attack scale a little bit with health of the target, his class etc. It’s doable.
-Give bosses more mechanics and tactics. Honestly, it isn’t anything impossible. Just prevent people from zerging/ignoring mechanics.
-As it was said before, being melee doesn’t mean that you should do way more damage than ranged. Melee should have more defensive instead. Otherwise, everyone will be melee
-Annihilate stupid favorism game mechanics. Example? Nothing hard to show - Frost in CM explorable. Try to melee him for a second. He’ll down you in 3 seconds and continue to cleave your body. Favors being ranged all the time as hell. Ranged = no damage at all. Melee = ridiculous damage.... Kitten like this destroys the game.
Now PvP:
-Kiting - that’s the essence of proper Ranged vs. Melee combat. You try to keep him at maximal possible range when he tries to time his gap closers and tricks, LoS and use defensive cooldowns to get to you. Once he does it, role changes. Now you use your defensive cooldowns, tricks and disengages when he tries to lock you down, in reach for maximal possible time. This is entire kiting cycle and it iusing many abilities and tricks. Most common are just slows, less - timed gap closers and disengages.
Now, imho Guild Wars 2 has a big problem with it. To begin with, overall movement system favors melee. You move faster while chasing than when kiting, you can use all skills when kiting player has to do something ridiculous - be afraid of his skills breaking by themselves, he essentialy has to either run in circle, hoping you’re dumb enough and don’t get too close, breaking his skills, or literally stop, turn and BACKPADDLE to cast your defensive skills.
- Instant gap closers- Why should anyone care and use cripple/chill when you can literally push one button, don’t give a kitten about being slowed, teleport right onto your kiting opponent and immobilize him at the same time? It wouldn’t be an issue if it had a CD or be CD itself. Steal port is cool. G. Targeted porting utility on meaningful cd also. But spammable, low-cost teleport on weapon? Why should I bother crippling/chilling/immobilizig my opponent at all, when he can abuse all my positioning, kiting with pressing one key constantly? Never really seen S/D Thief using his Dagger 4 to chase down people/gap lose. Why does cripple even exist in game? It’s abused by teleports, many movement skills, Warriors can get immunity to slowing effects, period. As a cover for other conditions? Possibly.
Give ranged classes more opportunity to disengage from opponents, more slows, make cripple and chill meaningful in any way.

The issue is that devs consider melee to be higher risk and so it does more damage than ranged. But the fact is there is almost NO risk in melee combat, because of evades, CC skills, mass boons, and easily telegraphed boss attacks.

By contrast a ranged user is at an extreme disadvantage due to gap closers, movement speed in combat, slow speed attacks with ranged, lack of damage in comparison to melee, and generally badly designed ranged attacks.

For those saying one should be better than the other; Sorry but that is nonsense, Range & melee should be near identical in damage output, with ranged units having less defence and melee units having more defence to compensate for any increased “risk”.

It should be a simple matter of preference. If I prefer melee over ranged, or visa versa I should not be kitten or buffed over the other. Both should be equal and its down to player skill and player preference in how we play and in how we maximise the damage.

we all know it. ranged attacks are just weaker. if you use ranged weapon you doing it wrong. except in dredge to kill the car but thats nearly an exploit. oh an yes. guardians staff. but they just buff with it and change as fast as possible.

I love the dmg i do with my ranger staying at 1500 + range.

DouBLe.6084:

Putting yourself in melee range increases your risk, so you get more effective in exchange.

You would be correct in most games.

Except in GW2 your above statement is not even close to correct.

Between dodges and melee weapon skills and builds – melee is at no greater risk then range in 99.9% of all situations.

Melee has access to more survivability traits and skill then ranged. So there is absolutely no greater risk for them.

Keep in mind we are speaking from a pve perspective.

Viable ranged combat does not exist in this game.

GW2 is nothing more then wack a mole melee fest in pve.

Sad but true.

Does melee users get more trait points or how do they get access to more survivability traits?

Also especially in PvE it is quite obvious that ranged has less risk. There is just no hard enough content to show it. Feel free to point me one non-trivial encounter which favors melee. Ashym and Imbued clearly favor ranged.

Azreell.1568:

DouBLe.6084:

Putting yourself in melee range increases your risk, so you get more effective in exchange.

You would be correct in most games.

Except in GW2 your above statement is not even close to correct.

Between dodges and melee weapon skills and builds – melee is at no greater risk then range in 99.9% of all situations.

Melee has access to more survivability traits and skill then ranged. So there is absolutely no greater risk for them.

Keep in mind we are speaking from a pve perspective.

Viable ranged combat does not exist in this game.

GW2 is nothing more then wack a mole melee fest in pve.

Sad but true.

Please go melee the statue of Dwayna during the temple event and get back to me. Or start going melee vs the Legendary Shaman in FOTM. Good luck!

Harper.4173:

Please go melee the statue of Dwayna during the temple event and get back to me. Or start going melee vs the Legendary Shaman in FOTM. Good luck!

Dwayna statue is extremely easy, even with huge particle effects going off. She raises a hand> dodge the blue stuffs>attack again. Rinse repeat till chest appears.

Shaman in FotM is harder Ill admit, but a couple of gaurdians dropping WoR right infront of him and whacking the crap outa him still works, as does dodging when he notches the arrow to the bow. And when in the ball phase a good melee player can cut through the adds with ease and go back to spanking the shaman.

Shaman may seem to favour ranged, but the fact is that the faster he is dead the better and for that melee wins hands down. Ive seen it done in fractals ^30 before the patch and seen it done post patch ^30.

So you have meleed Imbued Shaman but somehow completely forgot his melee only attacks on your analysis? How convenient.

And anyways scale 30 is trivial. Not to mention world bosses with zerg, just afk at range, no need to even dodge.

No I didnt mention his melee only attacks because those can be evaded, blocked with aegis, reduced with prot, ignored with block skills etc etc. When melee stacking him, those are all a given. The arrow was mentioned because in comparison from melee to ranged attacking him, the arrow is the prime concern as it contains agony, burning and AoE flame blasts (since your not melee him ’natch). WoR makes it hit him instead, or didnt you know that? And since you want to be precise it seems, dont forget his AoE attacks too that you run/evade out of.

You said “go do it”. I’ve stated “I’ve already done it both ways”. Results were Melee was easier and faster. Then you pull the “oh thats trivial” line, to try and invalidate the response. That’s pretty much an informal fallacy.

Your contending that melee is riskier. Im saying its only risky if you have not L2p.

I don’t know… i think if warrior get to use staff and sceptor, it will do a ton of damage too.

Ranger melee weapon isn’t exactly high dps.

So not all is true. Maybe this discussion need to be more class specific.

Lexandro.1456:

No I didnt mention his melee only attacks because those can be evaded, blocked with aegis, reduced with prot, ignored with block skills etc etc. When melee stacking him, those are all a given. The arrow was mentioned because in comparison from melee to ranged attacking him, the arrow is the prime concern as it contains agony, burning and AoE flame blasts (since your not melee him ’natch). WoR makes it hit him instead, or didnt you know that? And since you want to be precise it seems, dont forget his AoE attacks too that you run/evade out of.

You said “go do it”. I’ve stated “I’ve already done it both ways”. Results were Melee was easier and faster. Then you pull the “oh thats trivial” line, to try and invalidate the response. That’s pretty much an informal fallacy.

Your contending that melee is riskier. Im saying its only risky if you have not L2p.

First of all, I didn’t tell you to do anything (you may want pay more attention to names you are responding to).
Secondly, while it’s always cool to tell people l2p it isn’t very smart thing to do if you don’t consider scale 30 trivial.
Finally, you can also block/evade the arrow so makes no sense to ignore other attacks based on that. Also lots of people have sufficient AR so the arrow isn’t their biggest worry (also wasting anti projectile skills on the arrow is a mistake, which of course doesn’t matter on trivial content). There is a far more dangerous melee only attack.

Apologies for confusing the responses. I am not telling people l2p, I am stating that the “risk” factor is near non existent once a person l2p with a melee class.

Block/Evading the arrow is a bad idea, reflect it back at him and its bursts on him instead. Thus the boss helps kill himself, making it that much easier and faster to take him down. The agony on the arrow is trivial once you have AR, the burning and AoE flameblast are not trivial particularly to other members of the team in close proximity.

I don’t consider pre-patch fractal 30+ trivial because its was not trivial and to suggest otherwise is dishonest. Uncategorised, dredge, and shaman fractals above level 30 pre-patch required proper team work and weak links in the team will be exposed. Post patch its a wee bit easier but its by no means trivial. No its not l2p issue, its an honest assessment of the challenge without bluster or hyperbole over the difficulty (or any perceived lack thereof).

My biggest problem with the Engineer’s weapons are the abilities and fire rate. The rifle supports little to no long range capabilities.

The #3 is a shotgun blast that has a short range and does more damage the closer you are.

The #4 is a blast that propels you and your enemy backwards (in opposing directions) which is a nightmare. It only has 400 range and the knock back is likely to send you falling off a cliff or immobilized while a handful of enemies laugh their kitten off. Then they beat you up while you get back up because you’re an idiot and why would you even use that ability.

The #5 is the worst of the bunch. It’s a leap attack that’s so terribly ineffective for long or mid range combat because it does more damage where you land and kitten than from where you leap.
If you want to do damage to your enemy while simultaneously getting away then you’re pretty much screwed. Not to mention aiming it takes a bit of time, since you need to find a good place to land.
Using the large amount of land damage to your advantage is another awful idea. You end up so close to the enemy that you might as well butter yourself for them to eat you.

God forbid your enemy have a strong area of effect attack (which they will [they always will]) because at that point they don’t even need to close the gap to reach you.

Ranged enemies have an advantage as well, because you can only really damage them with your #1. #2 and #4 become completely useless! What good is immobilizing an enemy that doesn’t move or pushing away an enemy that’s already too far away.

The worst thing about the rifle is that it just isn’t fun to use. At all. You’re much better off dual wielding pistols (whose animations they really should fix [and it’d be nice if they increased your fire rate but I digress]) or having a pistol and a shield. Their abilities are much more effective in combat. Even though the pistols #3 has a chance to aggro nearby enemies (but again I digress)

I can see what they were trying to do with the Rifle, honest I can. They tried to make a medium range weapon that helped you control your enemies distance while being effective at long, medium, and close range.

It would have been an amazing idea but it just wasn’t executed properly.

You know, whe have killed Zhaitan because he was necroing stuff…

Wethospu.6437:

Does melee users get more trait points or how do they get access to more survivability traits?

Melee weapon skills can be focused on defensive abilities (Parries, condition cleanses, evades, +toughness, etc.) and defensive traitlines (Those that give +Healing, Toughness, Vitality, Boon duration) can favor melee weapons and style. Meanwhile, offensive traitlines (Those that give +Power/precision/condition damage/duration) can favor or synergize with ranged weapons well.

If you don’t like the melee superiority in this game, you could always play Guild Wars 1 where melee was really lolbad compared to mesmers, ritualists and necromancers.

The dmg of ranged weapon attacks suck, but it comes with great survivability, when doing champions in orr with my guardian, i get 2 shot every couple of seconds, while my gf is in the back with her ranger afk. I play mesmer as my main, and i see a huge difference in survival, between it and my guardian, sure i do kittenton of dmg with the greatsword, but can only take 1-2 hits from champs, and no you cant dodge them for some weird kitten reason.

Take for example a champ corrupter guy.

Engage him in melee, he creates his aoe around him, you dodge it, he pulls you in, you die. My mesmer does way less damage, but at least i can stay in the back and faceroll stuff.

Melee is only good when you have multiple of them stacked in the same place, if you’re a small group vs a champ, you can be sure you’re going to kiss the ground a couple of times. Armor in this game seems to have very little effect.

Im talking pve here, i freaking love my guardian in pvp.

sfxblade.3459:

when doing champions in orr with my guardian, i get 2 shot every couple of seconds

I must strongly advise you to look at your build, because something is very, very wrong here.

Astralporing.1957:

sfxblade.3459:

when doing champions in orr with my guardian, i get 2 shot every couple of seconds

I must strongly advise you to look at your build, because something is very, very wrong here.

I am wondering the same thing, but i dont think the build matters when you get hit for 17k dmg per hit.

If you dont believe me, go to the jofast event and try to hit the champions in melee.

Anyways, im pretty sure i just suck at this class hah(in pve).

sfxblade.3459:

I am wondering the same thing, but i dont think the build matters when you get hit for 17k dmg per hit.

If you dont believe me, go to the jofast event and try to hit the champions in melee.

Anyways, im pretty sure i just suck at this class hah(in pve).

Sounds like it’s a playstyle issue. When meleeing there’s a number of factors to watch out for:

• Watch the bosses’ facing, unless you have his aggro you should aim to be in a flanking position (to the side or behind) instead of his forward cone to avoid cleaves.
• Try figure out what skills the boss is using, and anticipated/watch for telegraphs, dodge or back off as needed.
• Guardians have quite a large range of blocks, invulns, aegis and blinds. Don’t be afraid to use them appropriately (virtues, renewed focus, shelter, retreat! etc). “saving them for later” is no good if you’re dead, they’re there to stop you becoming dead :p

Sartharina.3542:

Wethospu.6437:

Does melee users get more trait points or how do they get access to more survivability traits?

Melee weapon skills can be focused on defensive abilities (Parries, condition cleanses, evades, +toughness, etc.) and defensive traitlines (Those that give +Healing, Toughness, Vitality, Boon duration) can favor melee weapons and style. Meanwhile, offensive traitlines (Those that give +Power/precision/condition damage/duration) can favor or synergize with ranged weapons well.

So one melee tank and rest ranged DPS? Or would melee damage still be superior?

Anyways, forcing people to take more defense on already very easy content isn’t in my opinion the right way to go.