Guild Wars 2

In most games if you go melee you usually get some form of reward for doing so such as higher defense or higher armor and defenses that truly shine in melee.

In gw2 now many fights can not do melee due to massive aoes around bosses and champs, they are severely hurt with draining endurance much faster, they do less damage because they are more involved in dodging things right in their faces, and worst of all any condition ranged build is going to be doing more damage then you while they survive better as they can see things coming at them easier.

I enjoy melee in games but anymore I feel like going melee is so useless on so many classes. I’m not saying buff all melee weapons but maybe things like while holding melee weapons your endurance charges faster and you have x amount of chance to block attacks or something.

I know it sounds like I’m complaining which I’m trying not to do but any time I go melee I just feel I do so much better in every single way which I don’t think is right

Assuming we are talking PvE here, I cant think of ANY class that dont do alot more dmg in melee then as ranged. In some harder fight, going in and out of melee can sometimes be the optimal, but generally there is only 1 reason to be ranged and that is sleep mode. Now being in melee will often requere that you stay awake and move+dodge/block/distort/reflect when getting attacked back. But the benefit is that your dmg is alot higher then a ranged player.

I know new/un-exp players often feel ranged do more dmg, but this is simply due to not knowing the fights and the class they play. When this knowlange is optained melee will win out every time. So, get in there and you will see improvement

The curse of GW2 is that you need to be flexible. For instance, as a warrior, I play a condition viper build where I can switch to the longbow if necessary in certain situations. However, as said warrior, I am doing the quickest (melee) DPS out of any other class that I also play as melee — therefore the enemy goes down in the blink of an eye (in comparison). Also, a warrior has powerful downstate skills which get you up and running again quickly.

Everything is being compensated that way. And as Sigfodr pointed out, learning the class skills and how/when to use which skill (also skill combos) is most important.

And as for my initial statement: the curse of GW2, furthermore, is that there are no real profession characteristics anymore. It’s one big blur of so-called “balancing” where pretty much every class does the same in the end, especially with more elite specializations being released. E.g., the new ranger elite spec fulfills many duties that I would see fit for a guardian, but not a ranger, namely providing boons; before that, the druid elite spec for ranger was also used for all sorts of support, when in my eyes a ranger is a fighter, not a supporter class… But hey, what do I know, right?

I’m really confused by the OP’s comment.

GW2 is the most melee-centric MMO I’ve ever played. Even theoretically ranged light armour users are strongly encouraged by the game’s mechanics to fight at melee range.

Eg. AOE buffs and heals have a very limited range. So in group content the norm is for everyone to bunch up around a boss, and dodge away from or interrupt or block etc. the big AOE attacks.

Even solo PvE favours melee. Zipping madly around a foe so they’re rarely facing the right way to hit you is one of the best forms of defence. You can’t do that at range.

Caeledh.5437:

Even solo PvE favours melee. Zipping madly around a foe so they’re rarely facing the right way to hit you is one of the best forms of defence.

My vanilla build condition necromancer with viper’s equipment and a staff begs to differ. I am constantly switching between ranged and melee, but a lot of the time the long ranged staff gets the job done nicely in no time without my character getting hit by any AoE.

Sylent.3165:

In most games if you go melee you usually get some form of reward for doing so such as higher defense or higher armor and defenses that truly shine in melee.

In gw2 now many fights can not do melee due to massive aoes around bosses and champs, they are severely hurt with draining endurance much faster, they do less damage because they are more involved in dodging things right in their faces, and worst of all any condition ranged build is going to be doing more damage then you while they survive better as they can see things coming at them easier.

I enjoy melee in games but anymore I feel like going melee is so useless on so many classes. I’m not saying buff all melee weapons but maybe things like while holding melee weapons your endurance charges faster and you have x amount of chance to block attacks or something.

I know it sounds like I’m complaining which I’m trying not to do but any time I go melee I just feel I do so much better in every single way which I don’t think is right

I agree with you on the point that the disparity of defensive stats for melee in this game, vs having the same defense and being able to fully range a target.

Bunker Builds, as it were are simply not a viable option in PvE for GW2, they tend to be a more noticeable and viable in PvP, but even then.. not as much as other games.

But as others pointed out, this game also does not lock you into Melee with any class, every class has a ranged option to them that is viable, abet, often enough there is a higher DPS for melee, which makes all the melee classes in GW2 assault style melee as opposed to bunker style melee.

ANet has practiced melee hate off and on since the original GW. Knockdowns, blinds, bleeds, cripples, slows, AoE, mobs that blow up in a PBAoE when killed, etc. GW2 is no different now. However, GW2 also has tools that allow players to stand in melee through a lot of stuff like that. In general, PvE players don’t use them as much as I see them used in WvW, for instance.

Now, why is there more melee hate in GW2 PvE than was true at the start of the game? A long standing complaint about dungeons was that groups would stack in melee, max out offensive buffs and burn bosses down in little time. Accusations like “face-roll.” “boring,” “silly,” and “stupid,” flew regularly. Add in that core PvE in the open world was also labelled too easy. ANet apparently decided to do something about the situation. Thus, we see a lot more AoE starting with the introduction of the Mordrem army in LS2.

Sigfodr.9576:

Assuming we are talking PvE here, I cant think of ANY class that dont do alot more dmg in melee then as ranged. In some harder fight, going in and out of melee can sometimes be the optimal, but generally there is only 1 reason to be ranged and that is sleep mode. Now being in melee will often requere that you stay awake and move+dodge/block/distort/reflect when getting attacked back. But the benefit is that your dmg is alot higher then a ranged player.

I know new/un-exp players often feel ranged do more dmg, but this is simply due to not knowing the fights and the class they play. When this knowlange is optained melee will win out every time. So, get in there and you will see improvement

There is an exception, and that is Thief against single targets. The damage from double pistol is about the same as with staff against a single target (that doesn’t have reflects like those Chak vets or stupid golems).

I often play solo, so going close combat wouldn’t give me any more boons either. Add a second or more mobs, melee it is. If I have a target that knocks back or stuns, I also do more dps with pistols because I have less downtime.

Ranged is def more damage than melee. Less rolling around = more time to dps.

Because melee can do 100% more dmg than range?

Most of the time the attention of the boss is going towards a melee, meaning a melee is doing most damages

Metavahn.7293:

Most of the time the attention of the boss is going towards a melee, meaning a melee is doing most damages

From what I remember about aggro discussions, how aggro is distributed seems to differ greatly from mob to mob. Maybe the melee players put more toughness on their toons. However, I get aggro quite often when I range with my thief at pug events, and she has no toughness at all. It’s so noticable that I started to not use Unload at the beginning of fights because if I get aggro, I pull and disturb the zerg. That started only when I switched to full berserker ascended gear. So yes, many mobs use damage dealt to calculate whom to finish first.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Now, why is there more melee hate in GW2 PvE than was true at the start of the game? A long standing complaint about dungeons was that groups would stack in melee, max out offensive buffs and burn bosses down in little time. Accusations like “face-roll.” “boring,” “silly,” and “stupid,” flew regularly. Add in that core PvE in the open world was also labelled too easy. ANet apparently decided to do something about the situation. Thus, we see a lot more AoE starting with the introduction of the Mordrem army in LS2.

It’s also because at launch the situation was pretty much the opposite of what the OP claims it is now. Many groups would kick anyone using a ranged, condition build, no questions asked. The simple fact that you attempted to use such a build was considered proof that you had no idea what you were doing and should not be allowed into group content.

It wasn’t any more accurate than the OPs claim that melee builds are useless now. (Ok at launch ranged, condition builds weren’t as good as melee power builds, but they were still good enough to get the content done.)

But that’s why there’s been so much focus on encouraging everything else, because for most of the games life a large chunk of the player base considered pure-power/beserkers DPS builds (which usually meant melee, or at least staying in melee range) to be the only option for every single profession.

Now there’s a lot more variety of ‘acceptable’ options. Which I guess if you favour power melee builds looks a lot like you’re being punished and forced to change.

Ashantara.8731:

The curse of GW2 is that you need to be flexible. For instance, as a warrior, I play a condition viper build where I can switch to the longbow if necessary in certain situations. However, as said warrior, I am doing the quickest (melee) DPS out of any other class that I also play as melee — therefore the enemy goes down in the blink of an eye (in comparison). Also, a warrior has powerful downstate skills which get you up and running again quickly.

Everything is being compensated that way. And as Sigfodr pointed out, learning the class skills and how/when to use which skill (also skill combos) is most important.

And as for my initial statement: the curse of GW2, furthermore, is that there are no real profession characteristics anymore. It’s one big blur of so-called “balancing” where pretty much every class does the same in the end, especially with more elite specializations being released. E.g., the new ranger elite spec fulfills many duties that I would see fit for a guardian, but not a ranger, namely providing boons; before that, the druid elite spec for ranger was also used for all sorts of support, when in my eyes a ranger is a fighter, not a supporter class… But hey, what do I know, right?

Yes, assuming you are in a profession that can weapon swap my suggestion is a ranged weapon and a melee weapon. My goto is longbow/greatsword, but others will argue for other combos.

Coming up on a fight use ranged to at least tag it fast. When closer use the one that is optimal for that fight, knowing melee will do more damage.

They’ve added more mechanics because, for awhile, melee was outright overpowered. Or rather, the enemies were underpowered. Walking around in the overworld, I can still beat nearly every regular mob and most veteran mobs simply by facetanking and auto attacking. To make ranged weapons a tactical choice, you need to have places where melee weapons are high risk.

I’ve had at least one friend quit due to the rather persistent melee-hate in GW2. And I definitely see it: mobs with AoEs that linger way too long, “charging” enemies with one attack and don’t sit still while having unstoppable knockdowns, or otherwise critters that simply do too much damage too quickly to be mitigated.

I get it. And I also play my melee characters partially out of spite for that opinion and that reality. I will say that it’s upped my skill game a bit. I can find spots in the over-wrought AoE damage pools, I’m almost a passable chrono/guard tank, stuff like that.

So, while I feel that GW2 is probably over-punishing to melee, I’ve also been able to make it work.

I’ve always thought that melee weapons should grant an armor bonus. It’s only logical, because it’s way easier to deflect attacks with melee weapons than it is with ranged weapons.

Punished? I have a theif and I don’t get murdered from pve. And thief is probably the most squishy out of all the melee toons. You need the right armor. The right traits. And choose your weapons wisely to combat when you’re in danger and when you need to murder. Dodging I love that. I love how arena net put that in otherwise combat would be boring. And we would be stuck just hitting and staying still. There’s always tricks and understanding your toon to get through these things. My Daredevil is staff/shortbow. Or I would switch to shortbow/pistol dagger. But you have to understand the situations where you will be in when you get 10 rivals on you. And think how you will make it alive. I know people who are guardian and rev who don’t have a problem. But not often as warrior cause idk who uses them. But they are fine. I think the matter is. The game should be able for us to work hard to complete events. And it always should. I don’t want to play this game another year if they made the game easy. There is a reason why you have 2 weapons. Use them wisely. Make them compatible so when your in deep dookie you can get out. Practice, practice, practice.

Sylent.3165:

In most games if you go melee you usually get some form of reward for doing so such as higher defense or higher armor and defenses that truly shine in melee.

Well, not quite. Depends on the game. In some (early MMOs comes to mind), ranged players simply interrupted their damage output by moving). While melee players could continue attacking.

But I agree, in previous games there was always some direct benefit to daring to go into melee.

I think you are mistaking the “problem” with melee in this game.
Melee builds, or rather close range builds, are the highest damage builds, at the same time offer the best survival options for most encounters. Be it in PVP or PVE, melee builds dominate and I would never say that melee is “punished” in this game. In melee it’s easier to share buffs with your team mates, it’s easier to cleave and it’s easier to work as a team rather than solo. In instances (fractals/dungeons/raids) and in spvp melee dominates and it offers a lot of good options compared to staying only ranged.

Melee is “punished” in this game when you are alone. And by alone I mean when you are among a huge number of people, yet on your own. Like in large open world events when the mobs get leveled and 1-shot anyone, or when bosses get lots of area of effect attacks to affect as many players possible and you don’t have a Druid to heal you, a Chrono to distort, a Guardian to use Aegis and so on.

tl;dr melee is punished when you are on your own and fight enemies that are designed to attack many people at once (like world bosses), but when you are in smaller scale fights, instances or in sPVP melee dominates.

IndigoSundown.5419:

ANet has practiced melee hate off and on since the original GW. Knockdowns, blinds, bleeds, cripples, slows, AoE, mobs that blow up in a PBAoE when killed, etc. GW2 is no different now. However, GW2 also has tools that allow players to stand in melee through a lot of stuff like that. In general, PvE players don’t use them as much as I see them used in WvW, for instance.

Now, why is there more melee hate in GW2 PvE than was true at the start of the game? A long standing complaint about dungeons was that groups would stack in melee, max out offensive buffs and burn bosses down in little time. Accusations like “face-roll.” “boring,” “silly,” and “stupid,” flew regularly. Add in that core PvE in the open world was also labelled too easy. ANet apparently decided to do something about the situation. Thus, we see a lot more AoE starting with the introduction of the Mordrem army in LS2.

Let’s see: knockdowns were used mostly by melee characters against ranged characters, so listing them as an example of melee hate is rather disingenuous. Blinds were often considered most valuable when spammed on interrupt bow rangers, since warriors could still get off a knockdown through it when they needed to. I would consider them to be more ‘anti-physical damage’ than ‘anti-melee’. Cripple was also more often used by melee characters to prevent casters from escaping them, so it isn’t melee hate by any means (seriously, most eles were SF, so they didn’t use it; mesmers could only kd spellcasters…who is supposed to be knocking down melee classes from range?). Bleed is not an example of melee hate (and I honestly don’t see how you could possibly claim that it is). Exploding enemies was only in a couple of places, and those often jumped on top of spellcasters in your party, meaning the AoE affected pretty much everyone. Water magic and illusion slowing hexes I’ll give you, but that’s pretty much the only thing in your list that is actually melee hate, specifically. I would consider things like Faintheartedness to be melee hate, at least in PvP.

I agree with the overall point of your post, though. GW2, unlike GW1, has been extremely melee-centric from the beginning, apart from WvW zerging (and even then, melee plays a large role). The entire objective of sPvP, area control, forces you to fight at melee range. I’m really hoping they’ll take measures to improve the viability and usefulness of ranged weapons, especially in sPvP.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

I’m really hoping they’ll take measures to improve the viability and usefulness of ranged weapons, especially in sPvP.

I believe they are trying just that with the new elite spec for thieves. However, I see that fail terribly in a PvP environment.

maddoctor.2738:

tl;dr melee is punished when you are on your own and fight enemies that are designed to attack many people at once (like world bosses), but when you are in smaller scale fights, instances or in sPVP melee dominates.

You hit the nail on the head here, and this is probably what the OP is experiencing. For open world solo play, kiting and pets are king (imo).

Melee is only punished by fighting open world champions, in which case you should carry an armorset like marauders or cavalier if you want to melee world boss/open world champs.

Or simply equip a ranged weapon and run your berzerker.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

IndigoSundown.5419:

— snip —

Let’s see: knockdowns were used mostly by melee characters against ranged characters, so listing them as an example of melee hate is rather disingenuous. Blinds were often considered most valuable when spammed on interrupt bow rangers, since warriors could still get off a knockdown through it when they needed to. I would consider them to be more ‘anti-physical damage’ than ‘anti-melee’. Cripple was also more often used by melee characters to prevent casters from escaping them, so it isn’t melee hate by any means (seriously, most eles were SF, so they didn’t use it; mesmers could only kd spellcasters…who is supposed to be knocking down melee classes from range?). Bleed is not an example of melee hate (and I honestly don’t see how you could possibly claim that it is). Exploding enemies was only in a couple of places, and those often jumped on top of spellcasters in your party, meaning the AoE affected pretty much everyone. Water magic and illusion slowing hexes I’ll give you, but that’s pretty much the only thing in your list that is actually melee hate, specifically. I would consider things like Faintheartedness to be melee hate, at least in PvP.

I agree with the overall point of your post, though. GW2, unlike GW1, has been extremely melee-centric from the beginning, apart from WvW zerging (and even then, melee plays a large role). The entire objective of sPvP, area control, forces you to fight at melee range. I’m really hoping they’ll take measures to improve the viability and usefulness of ranged weapons, especially in sPvP.

I’ll admit my memories of GW PvE may be selective. I was thinking of mobs like: Enchanted Brambles (melee range cripple, bleed and blind); Death Novas from the melee minions of the Behemoth Gravebanes; knockdowns from Cobalt Mokeles; of course the exploding Afflicted which made up a lot of Factions, and melee-range bleeds applied by Scytheclaw Behemoths. Melee hate was the wrong word.

In GW PvE, much as with GW2, proximity added to aggro, meaning that melee mobs with control attacks that in PvP were used to deal with ranged characters ended up being used by mobs against characters in proximity to them. It’s also possible that my memories of GW may be colored by my last memories of GW are of doing Hard Mode Vanquishing on an Assassin. I took a lot of those hits while my ranged friend and the heroes didn’t. From a design perspective, my inclusion of bleeds was off, but from the experiential side, melee characters got a lot more bleeds applied to them than did ranged characters in PvE. However, the skill design intent — as was true with most of the GW skills — was rooted in PvP.

That does mean the design intent differed from GW2 where a lot of bosses do use massive AoE, the purpose of which seems to be to encourage flexibility by PvE players as regards to melee/ranged. Another factor is that GW2 mob skills are often proprietary to mobs, whereas in GW, mobs for the most part used the sames skills available to players.

Zenith.7301:

Melee is only punished by fighting open world champions, in which case you should carry an armorset like marauders or cavalier if you want to melee world boss/open world champs.

Or simply equip a ranged weapon and run your berzerker.

Even for open world bosses and champs melee is fine as long as you know where your active defenses are for your class. Sure blinds don’t work on anything with a defiance bar anymore, and the increase of defiance bars on normal mobs made the old guardian blind tank far less viable, but there are still blocks, evades, and stability application on most classes, and barring that shadow steps and short duration stun breaks for most classes to avoid the worst forms of melee hate (enemies that chain PBAoE knockdowns). Knowing how to burst CCs and break defiance bars quickly on whatever class you might be playing is also a valuable tool.

Sojourner.4621:

Zenith.7301:

Melee is only punished by fighting open world champions, in which case you should carry an armorset like marauders or cavalier if you want to melee world boss/open world champs.

Or simply equip a ranged weapon and run your berzerker.

Even for open world bosses and champs melee is fine as long as you know where your active defenses are for your class. Sure blinds don’t work on anything with a defiance bar anymore, and the increase of defiance bars on normal mobs made the old guardian blind tank far less viable, but there are still blocks, evades, and stability application on most classes, and barring that shadow steps and short duration stun breaks for most classes to avoid the worst forms of melee hate (enemies that chain PBAoE knockdowns). Knowing how to burst CCs and break defiance bars quickly on whatever class you might be playing is also a valuable tool.

Ranger doesn’t have easy access to stability or blocks (we’re talking 1 minute+ cd’s), and zerker thieves/eles won’t do to well either in melee against an Axemaster whose single spin instadowns them.

Warriors, guardians, and revenants are good classes for melee sustain. The other classes will suffer greatly running glass builds in melee because they don’t have the innate tools.

Just do one of those Karka events as a zerker dagger ele, you lose 70% of your health in common autoattacks and some aoe zones will 2 shot you.

That’s why I recommend alternative gearsets to address some of these mob scaling problems for the non-heavy armor classes.

Zenith.7301:

Sojourner.4621:

Zenith.7301:

Melee is only punished by fighting open world champions, in which case you should carry an armorset like marauders or cavalier if you want to melee world boss/open world champs.

Or simply equip a ranged weapon and run your berzerker.

Even for open world bosses and champs melee is fine as long as you know where your active defenses are for your class. Sure blinds don’t work on anything with a defiance bar anymore, and the increase of defiance bars on normal mobs made the old guardian blind tank far less viable, but there are still blocks, evades, and stability application on most classes, and barring that shadow steps and short duration stun breaks for most classes to avoid the worst forms of melee hate (enemies that chain PBAoE knockdowns). Knowing how to burst CCs and break defiance bars quickly on whatever class you might be playing is also a valuable tool.

Ranger doesn’t have easy access to stability or blocks (we’re talking 1 minute+ cd’s), and zerker thieves/eles won’t do to well either in melee against an Axemaster whose single spin instadowns them.

Warriors, guardians, and revenants are good classes for melee sustain. The other classes will suffer greatly running glass builds in melee because they don’t have the innate tools.

Just do one of those Karka events as a zerker dagger ele, you lose 70% of your health in common autoattacks and some aoe zones will 2 shot you.

That’s why I recommend alternative gearsets to address some of these mob scaling problems for the non-heavy armor classes.

I run my power based melee daredevil against things like Axemaster all the time. Knowing how to time your evades, and in particular vault on staff 5, is core to surviving encounters like this and barely loses any damage over auto-attack. Core thief is slightly less effective in this regard but still doable. Tempest can maintain 100% uptime of protection at 40% damage reduction as opposed to standard 33% on core protection, and I also stay at point blank with dagger/warhorn on my tempest, swapping in to water when I do manage to get low on HP to spam up my health with water blasts and high heal availability… yes, zerker gear, and on the aura share tempest I still can burst heal for around 15k between aura spamming and blast finishes. Again, core ele has some more difficulty with this of course, but core ele is in many cases much more powerful with more ranged options anyway.

Edit: Let us also not forget that frost aura gives an additional 10% damage reduction when up. Ele and Thief also both have other forms of active defense. Dagger thief should generally still be running pistol offhand for the utility of the blind, and has other defense options available in utilities, but more importantly thief is one of the classes with the heaviest burst potential. Dual dagger has a ton of evades, most notably Lotus which can be used in the same manner as vault detailed above.

Ranger is admitedly not in the best place for active defenses such as stability, though it does have a signet that provides a relatively long invulnerability period much like warrior’s endure pain. Additionally, greatsword has a passive evade on auto-attack that has negated more damage than I can describe, as well as an active evade and block on GS with a CC follow up. Sword has an active evade, dagger has an active evade, all are on relatively short cooldowns and even shorter if using quick draw, which you should be as a melee ranger. Otherwise ranger is good at laying a lot of conditions up front in a short amount of time then stepping back to range and letting them kill the enemy.

Ashantara.8731:

Caeledh.5437:

Even solo PvE favours melee. Zipping madly around a foe so they’re rarely facing the right way to hit you is one of the best forms of defence.

My vanilla build condition necromancer with viper’s equipment and a staff begs to differ. I am constantly switching between ranged and melee, but a lot of the time the long ranged staff gets the job done nicely in no time without my character getting hit by any AoE.

Besides the fact this is bad, because staff has limited condi application and the staff auto is power. You would do much more damage with a scepter.

Just because it ‘gets the job done’ doesn’t make it good. Take a viper GS build for instance. It does more damage than you do.

Sojourner.4621:

Zenith.7301:

Sojourner.4621:

Zenith.7301:

Melee is only punished by fighting open world champions, in which case you should carry an armorset like marauders or cavalier if you want to melee world boss/open world champs.

Or simply equip a ranged weapon and run your berzerker.

Even for open world bosses and champs melee is fine as long as you know where your active defenses are for your class. Sure blinds don’t work on anything with a defiance bar anymore, and the increase of defiance bars on normal mobs made the old guardian blind tank far less viable, but there are still blocks, evades, and stability application on most classes, and barring that shadow steps and short duration stun breaks for most classes to avoid the worst forms of melee hate (enemies that chain PBAoE knockdowns). Knowing how to burst CCs and break defiance bars quickly on whatever class you might be playing is also a valuable tool.

Ranger doesn’t have easy access to stability or blocks (we’re talking 1 minute+ cd’s), and zerker thieves/eles won’t do to well either in melee against an Axemaster whose single spin instadowns them.

Warriors, guardians, and revenants are good classes for melee sustain. The other classes will suffer greatly running glass builds in melee because they don’t have the innate tools.

Just do one of those Karka events as a zerker dagger ele, you lose 70% of your health in common autoattacks and some aoe zones will 2 shot you.

That’s why I recommend alternative gearsets to address some of these mob scaling problems for the non-heavy armor classes.

I run my power based melee daredevil against things like Axemaster all the time. Knowing how to time your evades, and in particular vault on staff 5, is core to surviving encounters like this and barely loses any damage over auto-attack. Core thief is slightly less effective in this regard but still doable. Tempest can maintain 100% uptime of protection at 40% damage reduction as opposed to standard 33% on core protection, and I also stay at point blank with dagger/warhorn on my tempest, swapping in to water when I do manage to get low on HP to spam up my health with water blasts and high heal availability… yes, zerker gear, and on the aura share tempest I still can burst heal for around 15k between aura spamming and blast finishes. Again, core ele has some more difficulty with this of course, but core ele is in many cases much more powerful with more ranged options anyway.

Edit: Let us also not forget that frost aura gives an additional 10% damage reduction when up. Ele and Thief also both have other forms of active defense. Dagger thief should generally still be running pistol offhand for the utility of the blind, and has other defense options available in utilities, but more importantly thief is one of the classes with the heaviest burst potential. Dual dagger has a ton of evades, most notably Lotus which can be used in the same manner as vault detailed above.

Ranger is admitedly not in the best place for active defenses such as stability, though it does have a signet that provides a relatively long invulnerability period much like warrior’s endure pain. Additionally, greatsword has a passive evade on auto-attack that has negated more damage than I can describe, as well as an active evade and block on GS with a CC follow up. Sword has an active evade, dagger has an active evade, all are on relatively short cooldowns and even shorter if using quick draw, which you should be as a melee ranger. Otherwise ranger is good at laying a lot of conditions up front in a short amount of time then stepping back to range and letting them kill the enemy.

I agree with this post, especially on theif. Condi D/D for instance has almost 100% evade uptime with acrobatics (dunno why you would run acro in pve). Especially with signet of malice, you have a ton of sustain and evades, with signet of precision for even more dodges.

I’ve never really had a problem in PvE running a melee build. Sword/Shield, Sword/Sword was probably my favorite way to play Chronomancer for a solid year after HoT came out because it brought a good balance of damage and survival. Greatsword with offhand Sword/Focus became an even better Guardian spec after Dragonhunter came out, because it gave another gap closer to the setup.

It’s probably been said but I feel the need to re-iterate… You need to stand in melee, even if you have a ranged weapon, because that’s where warriors, mesmers etc kitten all the buffs out. And if you’r standing at range you lose 25 might, quickness, alacrity, fury etc. You will do pitiful damage.

That’s even putting aside the fact that melee weapons actually do intrinsically higher dps by design.

I gotta agree. When I tried the HoT story content with melee weapons, I died very frequently. As soon as I switched to a rifle (as warrior), it became much easier. If you don’t have at least a ranged weapon as 2nd option, you’re gonna have a bad time.

In WvW you will also struggle with a pure melee build. Melees only work in other MMOs in PvP because healers can keep them alive and they because they have increased survivability. Of course you could go for a toughness vitality build but then you’ll lack damage and still need a healer which don’t really exist in GW2.

Sepheiron.4918:

I gotta agree. When I tried the HoT story content with melee weapons, I died very frequently. As soon as I switched to a rifle (as warrior), it became much easier. If you don’t have at least a ranged weapon as 2nd option, you’re gonna have a bad time.

In WvW you will also struggle with a pure melee build. Melees only work in other MMOs in PvP because healers can keep them alive and they because they have increased survivability. Of course you could go for a toughness vitality build but then you’ll lack damage and still need a healer which don’t really exist in GW2.

You clearly don’t play wvw or Gw2. Healers and kitten healing/dps builds are everywhere.

This has a lot to do with your play preference. I like ranged and to hang back in a fight vs rushing in. Depending on the class some are very strong at range others are better suited for the up close and personal. Mainly gear/stats and build matters on what your toon will be good at, though Anet’s focus on Meta building is taking away from this. The major difference with GW2 melee vs many other MMO’s melee is that other games are more passively driven on defense. For instance WOW my tank would parry, block, and dodge all without active input, but this also meant my defenses weren’t something I had to time so combat felt less active and more static. I was just watching for cooldowns and threat meters. It really doesn’t feel as interactive as GW2, but that is the trade off. More interactive combat or less interactive combat.

It’s basically risk vs reward. You have higher damage, and all the tools you need as a melee player to dish it out while mitigating attacks. You just have to know what those tools are for your specific class, and be aware that most of those tools rely on active defenses rather than passive. Ranged has a higher passive defense simply by virtue of being out of the bad, but at the same time even if it does reasonable damage it will never fulfill the damage potential of a melee setup. It is notable that there are zero full ranged setups that can hit 30k DPS benchmarks, or even really close to that.

Take Pistol/Pistol for example on thief… it has relatively high DPS in open world pve for a single target, but it is ONLY a single target. It hits just one enemy, and fails to hit that enemy if anything gets in its way. Against many mobs you STILL have to evade heavily, losing some DPS. Staff auto-attack does more damage or at least equal damage to a single target than using the initiative burning Unload on P/P, but also hits up to three enemies, effectively tripling DPS. It also has strong utility in the form of blind, weakness and evade while still outputting damage on a target, and hits the intended target more reliably because of the melee range. You play at greater risk and rely on more active defenses, but the trade-off is an extreme increase in damage potential.

It is frustrating how many times I find myself auto attacking from range simply because going into melee is a death sentence against so many bosses, especially the ones with the horribly overused “spin in a circle and kill all the melee players” gimmick.

Axemaster & Blademaster: spin in a circle
Justicar Hablion: spin in a circle
Cairn the Queenslayer: spin in a circle
Jade guys in Bloodstone: spin in a circle
Bloodstone guys in Lake Doric: spin in a circle

logan.5846:

It is frustrating how many times I find myself auto attacking from range simply because going into melee is a death sentence against so many bosses, especially the ones with the horribly overused “spin in a circle and kill all the melee players” gimmick.

Axemaster & Blademaster: spin in a circle
Justicar Hablion: spin in a circle
Cairn the Queenslayer: spin in a circle
Jade guys in Bloodstone: spin in a circle
Bloodstone guys in Lake Doric: spin in a circle

Dodge mechanic is a thing. Letting them spin gives you a chance to heal or renew buffs.

Mercurias.1826:

logan.5846:

It is frustrating how many times I find myself auto attacking from range simply because going into melee is a death sentence against so many bosses, especially the ones with the horribly overused “spin in a circle and kill all the melee players” gimmick.

Axemaster & Blademaster: spin in a circle
Justicar Hablion: spin in a circle
Cairn the Queenslayer: spin in a circle
Jade guys in Bloodstone: spin in a circle
Bloodstone guys in Lake Doric: spin in a circle

Dodge mechanic is a thing. Letting them spin gives you a chance to heal or renew buffs.

Or stay ranged and not have to worry about it.

logan.5846:

Mercurias.1826:

logan.5846:

It is frustrating how many times I find myself auto attacking from range simply because going into melee is a death sentence against so many bosses, especially the ones with the horribly overused “spin in a circle and kill all the melee players” gimmick.

Axemaster & Blademaster: spin in a circle
Justicar Hablion: spin in a circle
Cairn the Queenslayer: spin in a circle
Jade guys in Bloodstone: spin in a circle
Bloodstone guys in Lake Doric: spin in a circle

Dodge mechanic is a thing. Letting them spin gives you a chance to heal or renew buffs.

Or stay ranged and not have to worry about it.

Or CC them and you should be fine

logan.5846:

Mercurias.1826:

logan.5846:

It is frustrating how many times I find myself auto attacking from range simply because going into melee is a death sentence against so many bosses, especially the ones with the horribly overused “spin in a circle and kill all the melee players” gimmick.

Axemaster & Blademaster: spin in a circle
Justicar Hablion: spin in a circle
Cairn the Queenslayer: spin in a circle
Jade guys in Bloodstone: spin in a circle
Bloodstone guys in Lake Doric: spin in a circle

Dodge mechanic is a thing. Letting them spin gives you a chance to heal or renew buffs.

Or stay ranged and not have to worry about it.

Then continue to deal low damage and let the other guy whine about being scared of boss encounters. Up to you.

melee players are not punished, but melee players have to be a lot more active in their role to be effective. this is the trade off over range. ranged weapons allow you to sit back and mindlessly button spam for relatively lower dps. melee requires a lot more attention be paid to stay alive, but results in far higher overall dps if you are doing everything as you should be.

I don;t see what the issue is, unless you are treating melee with the same brain-turned-off approach as you can do ranged

OP never played paladin in Diablo 2…

GW1 and GW2 most melee centric games out there. Every gamemode have melee effective builds.

General exploration and world bosses – easy, do stand in red circles lol
Raids and fractals t4 – with druid heavily utilizes melee stacking
PvP – no comments it is used
WvW – good melee train is a core of any zerg

In this game close range combat is way too hard with far too little pay-off . In theory you deal more damage as melee weapons have a higher output but in reality you are only doing damage about half the time while the other half is spent dodging, strafing in circles, running in and out of attack range, healing, actively blocking, and crowd controlling.

The ranged folk plop down somewhere comfortable and have a nearly 100% damage uptime, only dodging or leisurely taking two steps to the side if the enemy throws an AoE right under them. They don’t need to bother with crowd control either if they don’t feel like it because both AI and other players tend to have tunnel vision and exlusively hone in on the target right in front of them instead of the one standing off to the side.

Meanma.5623:

In this game close range combat is way too hard with far too little pay-off . In theory you deal more damage as melee weapons have a higher output but in reality you are only doing damage about half the time while the other half is spent dodging, strafing in circles, running in and out of attack range, healing, actively blocking, and crowd controlling.

The ranged folk plop down somewhere comfortable and have a nearly 100% damage uptime, only dodging or leisurely taking two steps to the side if the enemy throws an AoE right under them. They don’t need to bother with crowd control either if they don’t feel like it because both AI and other players tend to have tunnel vision and exlusively hone in on the target right in front of them instead of the one standing off to the side.

Basically this. It surprises me that melee is getting so much defense. It’s the most intuitively obvious thing in the universe that ranged just flat-out works better in most scaled content.

This is why I favor giving melee weapons deflection or armor bonuses.

Einlanzer.1627:

This is why I favor giving melee weapons deflection or armor bonuses.

Which would affect content where melee is just fine, if not overpowered, that’s not a solution. Making scaling work better, adding more mobs, giving scaled mobs better skill sets is what can help. Mobs inside instances tend to have more complex skills to deal with, while in the open world they use less skills but up their hit points and damage by a lot.

maddoctor.2738:

Einlanzer.1627:

This is why I favor giving melee weapons deflection or armor bonuses.

Which would affect content where melee is just fine, if not overpowered, that’s not a solution. Making scaling work better, adding more mobs, giving scaled mobs better skill sets is what can help. Mobs inside instances tend to have more complex skills to deal with, while in the open world they use less skills but up their hit points and damage by a lot.

It’s a solution if they buff ranged damage. In fact, it’s the bast way to handle melee vs ranged discrepancies. Not making melee do way more damage.

Einlanzer.1627:

Meanma.5623:

In this game close range combat is way too hard with far too little pay-off . In theory you deal more damage as melee weapons have a higher output but in reality you are only doing damage about half the time while the other half is spent dodging, strafing in circles, running in and out of attack range, healing, actively blocking, and crowd controlling.

The ranged folk plop down somewhere comfortable and have a nearly 100% damage uptime, only dodging or leisurely taking two steps to the side if the enemy throws an AoE right under them. They don’t need to bother with crowd control either if they don’t feel like it because both AI and other players tend to have tunnel vision and exlusively hone in on the target right in front of them instead of the one standing off to the side.

Basically this. It surprises me that melee is getting so much defense. It’s the most intuitively obvious thing in the universe that ranged just flat-out works better in most scaled content.

This is why I favor giving melee weapons deflection or armor bonuses.

No… in testing conditions admittedly, ranged does about 15k less DPS than melee on the BEST ranged attacks… melee’s damage is so much higher that even if you spend a lot of time on active defense you will still take stuff down twice as fast, minimum, if you actually learn how to stay in melee range without dying. Maybe that tradeoff is not worth it to you, and that is your right. But please be informed about your choices… they are not “better” even with 100% damage uptime.

Melee could use some quality of life buffs for sure, but as it stands a mix of melee and ranged is going to be far more effective than just sitting at range, this is why you have this handly little switch weapon button that i notice ranged players never even use

Also some people just enjoy the high risk high reward gameplay, this isent EQ1 where peopel like to stand around and auto attack, some people actually enjoy the fast paced style of melee

Sojourner.4621:

No… in testing conditions admittedly, ranged does about 15k less DPS than melee on the BEST ranged attacks… melee’s damage is so much higher that even if you spend a lot of time on active defense you will still take stuff down twice as fast, minimum, if you actually learn how to stay in melee range without dying. Maybe that tradeoff is not worth it to you, and that is your right. But please be informed about your choices… they are not “better” even with 100% damage uptime.

It doesn’t matter how much damage you do in testing conditions because the average player will not perform the same when facing controlled enemies in a sterile environment while having access to all buffs of their choice as when facing uncontrolled enemies in an environment where you can get stuck on a rock while strafing, dodge off a cliff, pull other mobs in the vicinity, have something respawn right under you, have another player come along and mess up your strategy (pulling and knocking mobs at the wrong time, overlaying on your field or blasting it before you wanted, etc.) and juggle all these while only having access to your own buffs and crowd control abilities.

I have a weathered looking Charr lady among my characters. A warrior with that half-blind face. Wanted her to be this grizzled murder machine of the Blood Legion. Leveled her using only melee weapons. Still running double axe and double mace. Frankly, it’s too draining and frustrating to use her.

Always being in melee range means I take the brunt of the damage. Always being in melee range means I’m often crowd controlled because I can only dodge so often and have stability up only for so long before I’m inevitably knocked down, knocked back, stunned, feared and dazed in quick succession. Always being in melee range means I play hopscotch for the entirety of the fight as I’m trying to avoid both AoEs and big direct hits while also trying to stay in or run back into range for my weapons to work.

I played her with berserker stats for a while but with how much harder it is to stay alive in melee range I had to realize that my superior melee damage isn’t of much use if I die after 15 seconds. However, I wanted to keep her melee-only, still. I love playing melee characters in other games and was determined to make this work. So I got her full exotic soldier equipment with runes, signets and skills that further increased her defenses and self-healing ability.

Now I have a full melee warrior that finally survives all the cheap crowd control and AoE spamming that mobs use. In return I deal about as much damage as an AFK ranger auto-shooting from the distance and my melee gameplay consists of keeping a constant boring rotation of use up all the mace abilities to crowd control -> use all the axe abilities to do damage -> mace is off cooldown again -> repeat for agonizingly long till the mobs die.

As a player of low or average gaming skills, melee gameplay is either going to be about taking very frequent dirt naps or about whacking away at mobs for so long that you fall asleep mid-event.