Guild Wars 2

Hello,

I am a new player and looking to play a melee based character like warrior. Do ranged classes or ranged builds have a significant advantage over melee in pvp?

I took a look at various class abilities and it looks like a melee class could burn a cooldown to close the gap just to see the ranged burn one and reopen it?

Am I wasting my time sticking with melee weapons on a guardian or warrior?

ty in advance

dracoboar.1847:

Hello,

I am a new player and looking to play a melee based character like warrior. Do ranged classes or ranged builds have a significant advantage over melee in pvp?

I took a look at various class abilities and it looks like a melee class could burn a cooldown to close the gap just to see the ranged burn one and reopen it?

Am I wasting my time sticking with melee weapons on a guardian or warrior?

ty in advance

Yes and no. Warriors have horrible gap closing skills, while guardians make up for those in boons and tank ability.

In a simple explanation: Don’t pick warrior, guardian is fine with melee.

Empiren.6401:

dracoboar.1847:

Hello,

I am a new player and looking to play a melee based character like warrior. Do ranged classes or ranged builds have a significant advantage over melee in pvp?

I took a look at various class abilities and it looks like a melee class could burn a cooldown to close the gap just to see the ranged burn one and reopen it?

Am I wasting my time sticking with melee weapons on a guardian or warrior?

ty in advance

Yes and no. Warriors have horrible gap closing skills, while guardians make up for those in boons and tank ability.

In a simple explanation: Don’t pick warrior, guardian is fine with melee.

Nope, warrior has alot of gap closing skills.
But the problem is he does not have many option to let the target stay there for him to dish out all the melee power.
All he got is a long CD kd utility that can easily just breakstun and escape, and a shorter cd immobilize that can be cleansed by condition removal easily.

Guardian, on the other hand, got some disgusting useful trapping of hammer 5 that’ll let the target to stay there for the duration of skill.
Guardian also has easy access to immobilize that does not require you to spend an utility slot on it.
In terms of gap pusher, guardian has access to some protective shelter that’ll push anyone who approach.

Guardians are one of the best classes in the game, but tend to play heavy survivability for the purpose of holding points.
A lot of classes are split between ranged and melee, such as the Mesmer.
The warrior is a class that really struggles in spvp atm, so I would be careful with that class.

Aomine.5012:

Empiren.6401:

dracoboar.1847:

Hello,

I am a new player and looking to play a melee based character like warrior. Do ranged classes or ranged builds have a significant advantage over melee in pvp?

I took a look at various class abilities and it looks like a melee class could burn a cooldown to close the gap just to see the ranged burn one and reopen it?

Am I wasting my time sticking with melee weapons on a guardian or warrior?

ty in advance

Yes and no. Warriors have horrible gap closing skills, while guardians make up for those in boons and tank ability.

In a simple explanation: Don’t pick warrior, guardian is fine with melee.

Nope, warrior has alot of gap closing skills.
But the problem is he does not have many option to let the target stay there for him to dish out all the melee power.
All he got is a long CD kd utility that can easily just breakstun and escape, and a shorter cd immobilize that can be cleansed by condition removal easily.

Guardian, on the other hand, got some disgusting useful trapping of hammer 5 that’ll let the target to stay there for the duration of skill.
Guardian also has easy access to immobilize that does not require you to spend an utility slot on it.
In terms of gap pusher, guardian has access to some protective shelter that’ll push anyone who approach.

Most of warrior gap closers are directly effected by slows. So yeah…..gap closing is easily dodged.

Guardians are not just point holders, they are a must have in a team fight. They are support chars they give u protection, regen and keep conditions off u.

wars DO have plenty of gap closers. But you’re right in that they shouldn’t be effected by slows.

And to answer the topic, I think that melee inherently is at a massive disadvantage in this game. Ranged is king. If you are able to stand off a point and rain hell behind your teammates with the same amount of damage as a class eating massive amounts of AOEs from all angles because they’re forced into melee then something is completely wrong.

All “melee” classes have their gimmicks to keep them alive, except warriors.

Thieves have shortbow, stealth and shadowstep as well as natural condi removal from shadowstep and their heal.

Mesmers have insane amounts of invulns and a ranged weapon

D/D Eles are what warriors should be, tanky as kitten with an kitten of team support.

Guards are either bunker, semi-bunker or dead. faster than a thief

Warriors take it up the kitten with nothing to compensate.

im not sure what to think, im exWOW player (last played WOTLK) and i see it like this…

in WOW – melees have significantly higher dmg, usually few gap closers, usually some higher CD and/or talent skills, they need to be very carefull and rely on debuff like slows, stuns, etc

in GW2 – melees have significantly higher dmg, solid amount of gap closers compared to overall number of skills, they can use dodge which is very helpfull, they still got some conditions for slows, immobilizes, etc

i think melees in GW2 overall arent in disadvatage, thats normal state like it is imo, maybe even better then in WOW, ppl just need to learn use their skills correctly and dont spam them on cooldown…

In GW2 you don’t have full separation of melee vs range because every class have access to range and melee.
Except for maybe warrior which is mostly in melee mode, every other class is hybrid or fully range. For example thief will be lot of time on shorbow and is considered melee, mesmer will be lots of time on sword but is considered ranged, guardian will use staff or scepter shield/focus and so on… GW2 did good job in my opinion getting rid of this separation.

Duncanmix.5238:

Except for maybe warrior which is mostly in melee mode

warrior have much better range weapons then guardian longbow and rifle are quite good on warrior guardian got the worst ranged potential

The melee disadvantage is also further reduced by the game modes.

Your forced to try and stand in a small circle, when trying to defend. I’m not saying this gets rid of the range>melee advantage, but it does help reduce it.

MaXi.3642:

Duncanmix.5238:

Except for maybe warrior which is mostly in melee mode

warrior have much better range weapons then guardian longbow and rifle are quite good on warrior guardian got the worst ranged potential

It all depend on style, warriors usually go for full burst and then rifle is almost useless. You depend on hitting adrenaline skill and then you become rooted, easy to interrupt or dodge. I saw some longbow builds, but I’m not buying that.
On the other hand guardians play protector mode, while trying to support. Staff or scepter/shield focus are kind of perfect fit for that. As a guardian you’re not trying to burst something, but you trying to survive and support. On first look their ranged weapons look weak because no burst potential, but they are good for different purposes.