Guild Wars 2

I just want to mention that this is not a whine thread and I enjoy HoT very much.

As a melee lover, I find myself using range way more often than melee as a lot of the new mobs have mechanics that are melee unfriendly. Not to mention range mobs hit like a truck even to my tank/heal guardian.

Mob Types in Question: Regular & Veteran (other higher ranking mobs should remain the same)

To list a few:
- Mushroom AoE
- Stalker evasion
- Range mobs that jump backwards
- Range mobs that disappear and blink
- Bosses that stand in fire after breathing fire
- Mob charges far away

The real problem starts when 2 or more mobs attack. With the high damage output from mobs and all the CC, AOE, and dodging going on, it gets frustrating real quick for a melee player.

I feel like some mobs can be toned down by increasing their CC cooldown. Right now it is very punishing if I miss a dodge and get CCed + killed by a regular mob. As a player that killed dragons, it would feel more awesome if tiny little mobs don’t pose so much threat (Looks at tiny beetle)

From a design persepctive, I feel like HoT will benefit by having more enemy archetypes variations for regular mobs. Those are swarmer (pocket raptors don’t count as they deal too much damage), heavy, near and far.

I am sure game designers know this but I am going to put this here so we can have discussions between players as well.
Swarmer – Low Health, Low Damage, Close Range
Heavy – High Health, High Damage, Far Range
Far – Low Health, High Damage, Far Range
Near – High Health, Low Damage, Close Range

What do you guys think? Are there too many mobs that are melee unfriendly? As a reminder, this issue is pointed at regular and veteran mobs only.

I played through the whole game mostly with my greatsword.

Dengar.1785:

I played through the whole game mostly with my greatsword.

Yes, the Mesmer greatsword is a great ranged weapon.

Anyway, the OP would be correct. Pretty much all the mobs are melee unfriendly either due to heavy pbAoE attacks (stupid shrooms!) or heavy cc (keep rollin’ rollin’ rollin’ yeah!) in combination with heavy damage. Champ bosses literally say nope to melee.

…….I’m a Guardian. >_> Please don’t try to be funny, it’s annoying.

My initial impression was that HoT in general is significantly less friendly to melee, but I persevered and kept playing, tweaking my right side as I progressed further. After about a week, for nearly every time I felt frustrated by a mob, there was counter-play for it that I discovered myself, and it felt incredibly satisfying to counter that which initially frustrated me.

I took on (not solo, obviously!) the Legendary Wyvern Patriarch with a 100% melee, largely glass canon chronomancer build, going down only once – while standing at a distance from it, ironically. I went through Verdant Brink, Auric Basin and Tangled Depths with a Knight’s/Assassin’s Reaper, and most of my downed states resulted from ignoring mobs in favour of navigating terrain. I can CC charging mobs long enough to kill them, and I keep “Suffer!” handy so I can off-load cripples or other particularly annoying conditions. If I’m swarmed, I use “Rise!” – the more mobs, the more survivability that nets me – and then sneak into that cheesy Reaper’s Shroud. Mobs that bounce away just get pulled back in by Grasping Darkness or are charged towards with Death’s Charge. If you truly dig into your build, it’s not that hard to find counters for every regular/veteran mob without changing your weapons or even your trait lines.

That said, there are some mechanics that can be countered but still feel more inconvenient than challenging. Sometimes, cripple applied post-battle (I’ve seen some spiders and Zintl cavaliers do this) lasts up to ~20s. The mordrem riding the saurians can apply torment and cripple at absurd distances, and I’ve seen one instance of them doing it after I broke LOS, although that could have been lag. Mordrem snipers firing at you from stealth recreates the frustration of thieves in PvP slicing off a chunk of your health before their model reappears; changing that in PvP would probably be too controversial, but I’d like it if mordrem exited stealth just before firing, keeping the targeted player guessing up until the last moment. Lastly, NPC evasion feels like it lasts too long; it’s not challenging, it just breaks pacing – particularly leaping itzel and mordrem doing 3x death blossoms.

Overall, though, I’m thoroughly enjoying the difficulty of the expansion pack, and I’m not even a hardcore player – I have barely touched Fractals and have no intention of doing Raids.

I agree, I’ve solo’d many champs here who were particularly vulnerable to ranged attacks, which made ranged a much safer option because it would also mean to completely avoid damage in most cases. This also relates to the rest of the open world, where you can use ranged attacks to be relatively safe.

I use plenty of melee and don’t seem to understand the issue here.

It’s not tank and spank. That’s a good thing.

Smiley.3471:

I just want to mention that this is not a whine thread and I enjoy HoT very much.

As a melee lover, I find myself using range way more often than melee as a lot of the new mobs have mechanics that are melee unfriendly. Not to mention range mobs hit like a truck even to my tank/heal guardian.

Mob Types in Question: Regular & Veteran (other higher ranking mobs should remain the same)

To list a few:
- Mushroom AoE
- Stalker evasion
- Range mobs that jump backwards
- Range mobs that disappear and blink
- Bosses that stand in fire after breathing fire
- Mob charges far away

The real problem starts when 2 or more mobs attack. With the high damage output from mobs and all the CC, AOE, and dodging going on, it gets frustrating real quick for a melee player.

I feel like some mobs can be toned down by increasing their CC cooldown. Right now it is very punishing if I miss a dodge and get CCed + killed by a regular mob. As a player that killed dragons, it would feel more awesome if tiny little mobs don’t pose so much threat (Looks at tiny beetle)

From a design persepctive, I feel like HoT will benefit by having more enemy archetypes variations for regular mobs. Those are swarmer (pocket raptors don’t count as they deal too much damage), heavy, near and far.

I am sure game designers know this but I am going to put this here so we can have discussions between players as well.
Swarmer – Low Health, Low Damage, Close Range
Heavy – High Health, High Damage, Far Range
Far – Low Health, High Damage, Far Range
Near – High Health, Low Damage, Close Range

What do you guys think? Are there too many mobs that are melee unfriendly? As a reminder, this issue is pointed at regular and veteran mobs only.

Melee Unfriendly Mobs, of course they are, your trying your best to kill them, or do you want them on their knees with bent heads so you can chop away?

I use a warrior with mace and shield. He is in his element in HoT, especially with all those breakbars. Sure he can’t kill things as quick as my Tempest can, but he is far more useful than he ever was before due to 3x interrupts, 2x blocks and 2x projectile reflects.

I’m feeling this issue a lot on Thief, for a few reasons :

I have low health pool, even with quite a few valkyrie pieces I won’t get over 15k / 16k health.

My ranged weapon sucks at doing good damage, so if I stay ranged, I’m basically leeching the events over someone that could do double the damage I do at range.

My natural defenses like Blind are ineffective against anything with a breakbar. Timing evades is difficult because a lot of mobs / bosses don’t have tell to their attack / I get random targeted by them at melee even tho I have no toughness bonus.