Guild Wars 2

After being in WvW for a while, being on the winning side and being on the losing side. one thing stands out when it comes to the combat.

Ranged is far more effective in the overall scheme of things.. and not just direct damage ranged…. AOE Ranged.

lets face it, there is a problem with the AOE ranged attacks and the WvW setup. anyone who has been a part of a large group or faced a large group has heard the orders to “AOE them down”, or “stay out of the aoe”. because that is what the fight consists of, pure aoe massacre.

the damage difference between a sword wielder jumping into the fray and a guy throwing aoe from safe range at the back on top of the melee players is huge. the melee and the ranged both have the same potential for offense/defense, but the difference in that the ranged doesn’t need to stack as much defense because they are always at range.

this creates a big difference between the viability of certain classes, and the ones that people want to play in WvW.

to make a long story short, we all know that a group of 10 ranged characters tossing aoe in 1 spot, will completely destroy anything that walks into it, or that gets stuck in it, and this is a problem. the game turns into a don’t step in the circle fight because its near instant death if you have a melee spec that requires you get in close with the casters.

something i propose to help balance things out between ranged and melee (and lets face it, the damage difference between range and melee when it comes to single target/aoe is huge when you have to get up close to aoe with a melee weapon), is to give some sort of damage reduction for every target being hit by the aoe effect… the max being 5-10 character that can hit at a time with any aoe melee and ranged, and then reduce the damage by 10% for each extra target after the first. so 2 targets receive 90%, 3 targets receive 80%, 4 70%, 5 receive 60%. a system like this would encourange more people to switch up to more single target abilities and do things like we see in games and movies when you look at a battle of large scale…. people throwing themselves into the fight going for blood one man at a time, not just swinging widly into a group and trying to hit as many at once.

this is just a suggestion, and i think we can make the large scale fights more fun overall instead of being a massive aoe spam fest.

please keep it civil so we can get some dev response in here in regards to making WvW more fun for everyone when it comes to fighting

Yes, but there are NO pure melee class! Each class has both melee and ranged options, single target and AoE. When playing WvWvW, adapt, use ranged/AoE and good to go. It will not the world change for you, you have to adapt to the world.

its not a change for a single person, don’t turn this into a QQ thread,

this is about balance between the different play styles that people want to use, and limiting the usefulness of WvW to purely ranged and AOE abilities when particiapting in large fights takes a lot fun out of it that could be there.

as Anet has said, all play style should be supported, and currently, ranged is much more effective when using AOE in WvW is most situations than melee.

im a guardian and i keep a staff as my offhand because of the range, and the aoe abilities and support, but the main damage i do is with the greatsword, i don’t have a rough time doing it either but you have to pick and choose your fights.

as a ranged class, there is no need to pick and choose fights, its always having uptime to do damage that makes them outclass the melee specs in the long run

For mindless zergs and keep offense and defense. Range is far superior.

For small group skirmishes. Melee is superior if you’re good.

wish i had some videos for discussion of the elementalist squads that do keep defense, a simple set of a guardian throwing down a staff wall while 3-4 elementalists rain meteors down on the door attackers is simply ridiculous, 25 dead in seconds

Azure Prower has it right. To get the best of both worlds, just keep your 2 melee weapon kits equipped normally and swap to 2 AoE kits (and possibly other skills) whenever you join in with the zerg crowd.

Melee has its niche. I have absolutely no problem with the balance, even though i’m what you’d call “melee” class. It is perfectly fine that melee does more damage but is more vulnerable to enemy attacks. I think the balance is pretty well done, really.
Keep 1 set of melee and 1 set of ranged weapons and youre fine.

While I agree with OP, it’s generally only the case for sieges and choke points. Small battles like what usually happen at supply camps aren’t ruled by AoEs and a ranged player built like a glass cannon is going to die, hard.

Melee have ranged options. My warrior does some pretty sick damage with his rifle, and I can do some nice crowd AoE with arrow carts.

And again….

There is no melee class in GW2.

My mesmer can be ranged with staff/GS, or I can switch to sword/torch and sword/sword and be up close and personal.

Its all about how you are set up.

Archaeneoso.8461:

And again….

There is no melee class in GW2.

My mesmer can be ranged with staff/GS, or I can switch to sword/torch and sword/sword and be up close and personal.

Its all about how you are set up.

maybe my post wasn’t very clear.

my point isn’t that people CANT do range and aoe.. because they can.

my point is that fights in larger scale end up being nothing but people blasting aoe ine very direction hoping to hit as many targets as possible. and this is especially the case with the lack of loading players right now.

if you have ever been a part of a 60 on 60 skirmish where one large force encounters another, you would realize how hopeless it is to even try to single target anything.

im merely suggesting ways to make large scale skirmishes more fun as opposed to having them end up being which side can shoot the most aoe first.

i guess in my head im hoping that large fights can be more fun to the point where you have people squaring off and helping each other and playing it like a real pvp fight, a huge, nonstop, pvp fight with tons of other people….

but i guess if people just like to frantically press as many aoe abilities as possible then it should stay the way it is for aoe abilities hitting tons of enemies all at one time for max damage

If you go melee, you need to pile on the defense. Your goal as melee isn’t necessarily to kill anyone, but to be leading the zerg and drawing fire from your more fragile ranged dps. Most people target whatever is closest to them.

Morzul.4625:

Yes, but there are NO pure melee class! Each class has both melee and ranged options, single target and AoE. When playing WvWvW, adapt, use ranged/AoE and good to go. It will not the world change for you, you have to adapt to the world.

That doesn’t mean ranged options should be abject superior in terms of damage output. This is a problem for PVE too. It’s easier in both to go ranged and kite enemies than it is to try and chase people down / stay in melee range. This game has the problem LoL had 2 years ago where ranged is king in PVP and equal or still better for PVE. We need systematic buffs to melee-oriented traits and some weapons to make them competitive or this will become a game where tournament teams consist exclusively of guardians (because of their sheer power as a class with the right build) as the only melee option that won’t get you laughed out the door.

In a siege situation, AOE ist really useful since it is a kind of area denial, and as a defender you want your enemy to go away from your gate, and as attacker you want them to stay away from the walls. But as soon as you fight on the open field, AOE only gets those who have not learned to avoid red circles. Even in massive raid vs. raid situations on the open field, focus damage is what kills people. The only situation where i die in these massive fights is, when several enemys immobilize me and burn through my health within seconds, and here melee ist king. Organize your zerg into groups, have a thief or necro pull out a single enemy, call him out as a target, immobilize him, focus him down, finish him, repeat. AOE forces the enemy to step away, 3 melees beating on a player normally force him to respawn. Of course it looks nice to see a lot of damage numbers on your screen, but if those who get hit just withdraw, heal up, and return to the battelfield a few seconds later, not much is won. And to focus down and finish a player, you normaly need CC and massive single target damage. Also burning through the health of siege equipment when you sally against the attackers ist much faster with melee. So i think both kinds of fighting have their place in WvW.