Guild Wars 2

Was letting everyone be ranged AND melee a bad decision? Trying to see people’s view on this. Keep it CIVIL.

When looking at the overall design of a class, one of the big things that helps someone decide what they want to be is not only weapon choices, but if that class is a melee class or range class. And when you pick a melee or range, you have trade offs. Obviously strong in one, weak or not possible in the other.

I think that is what my group of friends and I have discussed the most over the last few weeks. We understand where they were going with this design, but in the end, we think it’s just not working out, and the overall issues with things like Warriors with Rifles and how bad Rangers are at the moment is a prime example.

Now you can say, well Warriors are melee obviously but that doesn’t hold true in GW2. You CAN be a ranged warrior. BUT on top of that, you get the benefits of the Warrior class on top of that…which are heavy armor, high survival, toughness, etc.

Example: Rifle spec Warriors are the clear choice over even playing a Ranger, who you would believe would be the better ‘ranged’ class. But many will say..Rangers can melee also. Everyone knows that a melee range gets destroyed because they have medium armor and less toughness and HP then a Warrior who has high HP, heavy armor and more survival.

I don’t know if this ‘design’ philosophy is working out and I’m not sure in the end if it’s going to be something that really ‘hurts’ the GW2 game. I’m seeing a lot of complaints with it in terms of sPvP and WvWvW. Guardians and Warriors are the top classes for a reason. Survival, toughness, HP, and RANGED abilities that are on par with the more ranged classes.

In WoW, you definitely had the Range only group (Mages, Priests, Locks, Hunters) the mixed that could go either range or melee depending on spec (Shamans, Druids, Paladins, Monks) and the Melee only (Warriors, Rogues, DKs).

So if you picked a Elemental Shaman, you sure weren’t going to be good in melee, but excel at range. And if you went Enhance Shaman, you sure weren’t going to be excelling at range.

There was always a ‘trade-off’ in terms of picking melee or ranged.

In some games, it’s ARMOR accounts for WEIGHT and affects MOVEMENT SPEED. Therefore, ranged characters in lighter armor, can kite, move more effectively. Even rogue types in lighter armor can move/dodge/do more then heavy armored foes.

What are your thoughts? Does GW2 need to somehow address this? Make changes?

Please don’t turn this into a WoW vs GW2 flame fest. This has nothing to do with WoW, it has to do with an over-arching arch-type that has been around for a long time in MMOs. And it’s also not about having to get use to it. We’ve been playing over a month and right now, there is something inherently wrong with it.

I think because there is no trinity, it became necessary to have everyone being melee and ranged, so that everyone can share the damage being given from the mob. Since there is no trinity, there really is no aggro, the mob basically attacks who ever is the closest.

I think the main issue really is that they tried to “balance” damage so all classes are very similar, but they didn’t try to do the same thing for defense. So you have high defense classes who put out as much damage as low defense classes. Add to that they can do the damage at range or melee and it becomes a problem.

Ryth.6518:

Was letting everyone be ranged AND melee a bad decision?

No.

I’m not sure I agree with your assessment of the classes. I’ve played a warrior with a set of ranged weapons, and found it lacking in comparison to my ranger. Actually, for that matter, I find my ranger is also better at melee because she is quick on her feet versus having a lot of health (I move around a log, which I believe is a good strategy…you can’t lose health if the enemy isn’t hitting you to start with).

The warrior is strong and can take a hit due to heavy armor, but my ranger is quicker and seems to do better damage with the right array of weapons. I suppose if you put yourself in a box and only think of classes in a certain way, I could see why you believe that…but I just don’t see it. Sorry.

Diskonekted.8167:

I think the main issue really is that they tried to “balance” damage so all classes are very similar, but they didn’t try to do the same thing for defense. So you have high defense classes who put out as much damage as low defense classes. Add to that they can do the damage at range or melee and it becomes a problem.

Agreed…they haven’t balanced the ‘defensive’ mechanisms of the classes, which is going to be an issue until they fix this.

ProphetSword.5427:

I’m not sure I agree with your assessment of the classes. I’ve played a warrior with a set of ranged weapons, and found it lacking in comparison to my ranger. Actually, for that matter, I find my ranger is also better at melee because she is quick on her feet versus having a lot of health (I move around a log, which I believe is a good strategy…you can’t lose health if the enemy isn’t hitting you to start with).

The warrior is strong and can take a hit due to heavy armor, but my ranger is quicker and seems to do better damage with the right array of weapons. I suppose if you put yourself in a box and only think of classes in a certain way, I could see why you believe that…but I just don’t see it. Sorry.

Warriors are just as mobile as your ranger, I’ve played both and bar none, the Warrior is better in melee and better at range then the Ranger. Plus the Warrior is just as mobile as the ranger AND has better survival.

That’s just fact at this point of the balance of the game. You can even visit the ranger forums and see how they feel.

Fair enough. My assessment may be based on the fact that my ranger is Human and my warrior is a Norn, and moves like a cow tripping over his own feet.

The problem is that to balance this they have to change the way they designed the power creep in the game. When enemies have millions of hit points and can kill you in a couple of hits, the only real thing you can do is kite. If a class sucks at ranged, they will have almost nothing to contribute to the battle.

ProphetSword.5427:

Fair enough. My assessment may be based on the fact that my ranger is Human and my warrior is a Norn, and moves like a cow tripping over his own feet.

I’m not disagreeing with your assessment, because I feel that is how it should be..where players in lighter or medium armors should be more mobile, quicker, faster, etc…but right now, there is really no advantage to playing say a Ranger over a Warrior because armor doesn’t take into account movement speed, weight, etc.

When you think about things say like a Warrior…there were times where they would wear heavy armor for big fights, but also wear lighter or medium armors for skirmishes or melee.

Right now what we have lacking is something like that. So like the one poster said above, you have the heavy armor classes having the advantage of their armor, hp, health etc, but no penalties of it and the abilities of the ranged group.

You’re right, it should be that way. I thought it was, which is why I disagreed.

My ranger dodges quickly and is amazingly fast on her feet. My warrior, on the other hand, moves very slowly, can never seem to get out of the way of things, and doesn’t really lay down the damage as quickly as my ranger.

I think you are experience the ‘size’ effect which is where larger things seem slower or lumbering. It was an effect in WoW where if you were enlarged, it looked like you were running slower, but in all reality, you are moving at the same speed…you just covered more ground. Same thing with smaller things. It seems you move faster.

Just a visual thing.

I think it was a great idea, and has been balanced relatively well damage-wise, but as others have pointed out, it’s the defensive areas that are in trouble.

Melee classes have traditionally had more health or armor to offset being in melee range, the exception being the Rogue classes which had stealth, evasion, stuns, or burst to offset it.

On the other hand, Ranged classes were fragile but had the advantage of being ranged.

Now, that didn’t translate as well. Traditionally melee classes kept their advantages at range, but ranged classes didn’t get too much in way of melee advantages.

Either way, it’s not so much a deal of ranged vs. melee as it is issues with the classes themselves. The traditional ranged classes, Archers and Mages, have all have issues in their GW2 counterparts. Rangers, Necros, and Elementalists have their own issues that are being looked at, which is creating this perception of ranged/melee not translating well.

Also, on armor, I faintly recall A-Net saying lighter armors would give bonuses to endurance to make them more agile in exchange for losing armor. What ever happened to the idea?

I think it’s a great vision that basically every profession can be ranged. Guardians don’t actually range very well, but the other professions all have some legit capabilities at range (900 +).

In other games, I played melee dps. In other games melee players frequently complain (validly) that PvE encounters are not melee friendly. Thankfully here in GW2, we can always equip a range weapon, and we’re not like a weak excuse, but truly useful (except for guardian, perhaps).

It’s a great design approach, particularly for a non-gear-progression type game.

No.

Any existing balance issues are not caused by each classes access to both ranged and melee weapons.

Ryth.6518:

Was letting everyone be ranged AND melee a bad decision? Trying to see people’s view on this. Keep it CIVIL.

When looking at the overall design of a class, one of the big things that helps someone decide what they want to be is not only weapon choices, but if that class is a melee class or range class. And when you pick a melee or range, you have trade offs. Obviously strong in one, weak or not possible in the other.

I think that is what my group of friends and I have discussed the most over the last few weeks. We understand where they were going with this design, but in the end, we think it’s just not working out, and the overall issues with things like Warriors with Rifles and how bad Rangers are at the moment is a prime example.

Now you can say, well Warriors are melee obviously but that doesn’t hold true in GW2. You CAN be a ranged warrior. BUT on top of that, you get the benefits of the Warrior class on top of that…which are heavy armor, high survival, toughness, etc.

Example: Rifle spec Warriors are the clear choice over even playing a Ranger, who you would believe would be the better ‘ranged’ class. But many will say..Rangers can melee also. Everyone knows that a melee range gets destroyed because they have medium armor and less toughness and HP then a Warrior who has high HP, heavy armor and more survival.

I don’t know if this ‘design’ philosophy is working out and I’m not sure in the end if it’s going to be something that really ‘hurts’ the GW2 game. I’m seeing a lot of complaints with it in terms of sPvP and WvWvW. Guardians and Warriors are the top classes for a reason. Survival, toughness, HP, and RANGED abilities that are on par with the more ranged classes.

In WoW, you definitely had the Range only group (Mages, Priests, Locks, Hunters) the mixed that could go either range or melee depending on spec (Shamans, Druids, Paladins, Monks) and the Melee only (Warriors, Rogues, DKs).

So if you picked a Elemental Shaman, you sure weren’t going to be good in melee, but excel at range. And if you went Enhance Shaman, you sure weren’t going to be excelling at range.

There was always a ‘trade-off’ in terms of picking melee or ranged.

In some games, it’s ARMOR accounts for WEIGHT and affects MOVEMENT SPEED. Therefore, ranged characters in lighter armor, can kite, move more effectively. Even rogue types in lighter armor can move/dodge/do more then heavy armored foes.

What are your thoughts? Does GW2 need to somehow address this? Make changes?

Please don’t turn this into a WoW vs GW2 flame fest. This has nothing to do with WoW, it has to do with an over-arching arch-type that has been around for a long time in MMOs. And it’s also not about having to get use to it. We’ve been playing over a month and right now, there is something inherently wrong with it.

A Warrior who does not use his upgrades, sigils and traits defensively won’t have the vit and tou, to sustain himself. Those warriors who do good damage with rifle have, poor defense and will easily be taken down. heavy armor migration don’t work like in other games. In under five seconds a thief can kill him.

On the other hand a warrior can choose to go all out on vit and toughness, and he will be more surviveable, but his damage will take massive hits. lot of his dmg is managed by his amount of power, so its a iconic tradeoff.

I dont play Ranger, but they seem fine and competitive to me in WvW. I’ve sensed no poor state of them, besides them being a bit bland in in their utility skills.

So this is awesome. I played WoW of 7 years of people begging to me viable at having pets and using melee weapons. Nothing should dictate these sort other than players references. GW2 is really, really well balanced all things considering. Not perfect but it’s, REALLY good.

Peace.

An exotic Heavy chestpiece as 363 Armor.
An exotic Medium chestpiece has 338 Armor.
An exotic Light chestpiece has 314 Armor.

Unless there is a crazy mad armor coefficient around, I’m pretty sure the difference between Medium and Heavy is negligible.

In terms of stats, Rangers are quite average in all regards. Medium sized health pool, decent sized toughness.

So what’s the problem?

It’s a combination of Warrior Rifle being too good, Rangers having weaksauce weapon skills/being balanced around pets, and you learning to play.

I’ve had no problems using a mix of ranged and melee on my ranger so far.

I think a big part of the problem with rangers is they take more getting used to than some of the other classes. Especially warriors which are probably the most straight forward.

For example when we’re talking about movement it’s not just about manually dodging and kiting, which I agree both rangers and warriors (and everyone else) can do. All the rangers sword skills involve movement except the first two of the auto-attack chain. They’ve all got you leaping and evading whilst doing damage. That to me is a pretty strong hint that unlike a warrior who can tank to some extent a ranger is not supposed to stay still and absorb hits, they’re supposed to keep moving so they’re not even getting hit in the first place – which makes armor negligable.

If anything armor is more important to a ranger using a longbow because a lot of those skills tie you in place for at least a couple of seconds. Although there the idea is you’re supposed to take advantage of the range to make sure your target can’t hit you. (And use your pet or weapon swap if anything else gets close.)

You’ve also got the option of taking a pet with high health and using them as a tank to some extent (at least in PVE, PVP enemies should have more sense). Pretty much any pet can help control aggro, but obviously it’s more effective if they can stick it out instead of having to swap and risk the enemies changing target.

Uchi.2419:

So what’s the problem?

The problem is that everybody walks around blaming everyone but themselves. No it can’t be that there is some underlaying mechanic they do not yet master. the game is is at fault, and as such it’s “horrible unbalanced”.

Glass cannon warriors die easily. OP is using selective logic to convince himself it’s the game’s fault.

There are a lot of balance issues but armor type and base health pool isn’t one of them. Sorry OP.

Another view that I don’t think anyone has covered (although I will admit I didn’t read all the responses) is players have an incentive to take up multiple weapon crafting professions. For example casters would find use in going both weaponsmithing and artificing.

In a way no, and in a way yes.

No, because it’s nice that people can be either if they want.
Yes, because it’s just silly some classes (not all) can go from ranged to melee style combat at the click of a button – while in combat.

MajorMelchett.6042:

In a way no, and in a way yes.

No, because it’s nice that people can be either if they want.
Yes, because it’s just silly some classes (not all) can go from ranged to melee style combat at the click of a button.

Which class can’t?

AFAIK all classes can use both ranged and melee if they so choose.

Elementals can’t, if you take a melee setup and are in combat, your stuck with melee range combat for the duration.

And which melee weapons do they have where all abilities in all attunements are melee?

Ryth.6518:

When looking at the overall design of a class, one of the big things that helps someone decide what they want to be is not only weapon choices, but if that class is a melee class or range class.

I think that assumption is the underlying problem. Why should I have to choose a particular class mechanic because I prefer ranged combat? What if I don’t like pets? What if I hate the way heavy armor looks, but I want to melee?

You aren’t looking at the overall design of a class if you immediately sort them into ranged/melee. You might as well complain that you can’t sort them into tank/healer/dps. The differences among the professions are not the traditional distinctions, and I think that’s a good thing.

Yes, it makes understanding how to play your class more challenging. You can’t assume when you see someone in heavy armor that your best strategy will be to keep them at range. Guild Wars combat has always been more challenging for me (in both games, GW1 more so) because you have to be really situationally aware if you want to be effective

Yeah, if you’re a zerger, you don’t have to worry about that much, but when you’re in a smaller group or solo and you’re facing off against a champ or a skilled player who understands their class, you will get your butt handed to you if you think a ranger is just about shooting things with a bow.

Glass cannon warriors die easily. OP is using selective logic to convince himself it’s the game’s fault.

There are a lot of balance issues but armor type and base health pool isn’t one of them. Sorry OP.

Well that’s where your assumption is wrong.

I play an engineer.

It’s not about Warrior vs Ranger. That’s just one sample of seeing where people are migrating to another class because it has all the advantages of the one class and the advantages of it’s class also.

I dont play Ranger, but they seem fine and competitive to me in WvW. I’ve sensed no poor state of them, besides them being a bit bland in in their utility skills.

Actually Rangers are probably in the worst shape in the game. They have massive issues with their pets which is a big part of their play style/damage.

I think it’s ok because there are some instances where it will be much profitable (or even required) to be ranged or melee (say TA explo the wurm boss. if you go melee, it’ll be much much better, or for AC story versus ranger nente where range is pretty much where it’s at).

No, it’s a good idea when balanced and fitting. It’s the case in this game because the system not only demands that but permits it for the enemies as well, so the players need to be on a competitive level and not become too restricted. Only permitting specific classes to do only melee or long/medium range attacks exclusively would only work if the enemies against which they fight can only attack in specific ways and distances.

You could argue that a “real” archer (or ranger if you want to call it that) would only use his bow (or crossbow, or whatever the ranged weapon would be). But that doesn’t work well when you have melee-based mobs coming at you. Now of course you could try to take one or two down from a distance before they come at you or before they can see you, but that practically works in simulation types (or based from) of games. Here we’re talking about quite a fast-enough paced combat system in an MMORPG.

If on the other hand you were to make a “pure” warrior who’s never going to use anything by very short range/melee attacks then they themselves would be sitting ducks against long/medium-ranged mobs. The idea of having only one type (or range) for specific classes could work on paper and in practice, but not when enemies are varied enough across the entire game’s world to do both types of attacks (ranged and melee, not always at the same time, but the fact that some types of enemies do one type of attack, and other types of enemies do the other).

No, its a great decision. One of the most outstanding features of Guild Wars 2 is how it allows to customize a Profession towards your playstyle.

Well a real ranged character wouldn’t engage in hand to hand or melee if at all possible. They would run, reset up and continue at range or run away.

To be ‘good’ at range you need to excel at range and practice that mainly. Just like at melee, you have to focus on melee combat as your focus/priority.

Now I’m not saying they couldn’t do ‘both’ but it would be extremely rare to excel at both.

It might be better to do something like this for damage/classes.

• good at melee at 100% and range at 0% (pure melee)
• good at melee 75% and range 25%
• good at melee at 50% and range at 50% (hybrid)
• good at range at 75% and melee at 25%
• good at range at 100% and melee at 0% (pure range)

Right now, the example of the Warrior is still doing high melee and high range damage with good survival where the Ranger is not getting the same benefit.

Obviously traits, skills, etc effect all this.

no, it was a good decision as it offers flexibility for every character. But some balancing is still needed for the various classes.