Guild Wars 2

I always was under the impression that a glassy damage-oriented melee range build should always outdamage a ranged build, not only because of risk/reward, but also because AoE weapons like staff would generally do less damage to each individual target than a single target weapon. Why is it, then, that staff is clearly the best source of damage?

Additionally, on a somewhat related note, will a warhorn tempest’s melee range support balance out what we are sacrificing in damage?

Because the Staff leaves you far more vulnerable. Dagger has a lot of damage built into it, but it’s more about surviving than damage.

As for your second question, there’s no way to answer that until the beta test.

Difficulty of landing the skill vs Reward

Higher dmg does not mean you will land the skill. Lava font and meteor shower have more dmg than a dagger but how easy is for a player to avoid them?

When fighting a player, one can see the lava font and meteor and just step out to take 0 dmg. Difficulty vs reward. With a dagger it is easier to land cleaving abilities, making it harder for the enemy to avoid since they are not static. You can move the source of the dmg with dd, with staff you just drop on the ground and hope that the enemy stay inside.