Guild Wars 2

What do you recommend for PvE melee with a Ranger?

I’m levelling a Ranger (level 40 atm) and because I naturally tend to ranged characters (and ranged rather than melee games) it’s very tempting to just stick with bows. But I know this is missing out on a huge part of both the Ranger and GW2 in general. I’ve been trying the Ranger’s melee weapons but so far haven’t got a feel for them.

What are the different Ranger’s melee weapons best for?
And what sorts combinations work well with the different Ranger melee skills?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Guide-PvE-Meta-Ranger/first#post3868491

GS = trash mobs, mobility, and ease of use
Sword = best DPS

Thanks, very helpful.

can use in some cases 2 axes too

Mainhand axe isn’t melee and has horrible damage. Only place I’d use it is for running through blossoms in TA, then put your sword back on.

if you don’t fancy melee, you can totally use bows, or even axe. you’ll have a bit less dps, but you won’t have as much trouble with avoiding damage. just remember to use what you got, don’t just sit back. and look for traits that enhance your preferred style.

It’s not a bit less dps and also significantly worse when you consider multi target scenarios

TurtleDragon.3108:

It’s not a bit less dps and also significantly worse when you consider multi target scenarios

axe hits 3 (in some cases further away than melee could do).

there’s also piercing arrows.

Sword/GS can hit 3 as well, axe damage is also awful even if you did hit farther targets.

Piercing arrows is clunky to aim, and you have to give up a valuable trait slot for something multi target encounters which other weapons could already do. It means removing 1 of Spotter, Bountiful Hunter, Signet of The Beastmaster/Remorseless.

piercing arrows is fine… spotter is overrated, though, but it’s true that it’s one of the few immediate group benefits the ranger can slot.

and i’m still not seeing how a bit less dps warrants this dramatic devaluation. have you tested melee vs. ranged dps lately?

Enlighten me, define “a bit less” and tell me what has changed recently to make ranged weapons competitive with melee weapons in dungeons and fractals.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Enlighten me, define “a bit less” and tell me what has changed recently to make ranged weapons competitive with melee weapons in dungeons and fractals.

I use LB and Axe/Wahorn on most fractals for 48-50 with celestial/zerker mix. The mainhand axe will do 1500-1800 damage per bounce against most things, which is pretty high. Also, split blade at close range does massive damage when factoring in the bleed. It just depends on the group you rin with, I guess.

I find Sword auto attack is really sweet but, in many fights, I can’t keep the pressure on, so axe will do more damage (cliff side/dredge/ascalon). Against 3 targets, axe is always dealing more dps than sword… At least, I’ve never been able to hit for 4500 with sword swipe.

For PvE melle in dungeons I recommend carrion stats with sword/torch and GS or sword/axe. Use flame trap. Just ball up enemies and put them in fire field. Most competent groups will max team might with you fire fields. Everything will melt. Use offhand axe for retaliation (some foes are weak to this). Use leaps on GS and sword to give you fire aura. Enjoy!

TurtleDragon.3108:

Enlighten me, define “a bit less” and tell me what has changed recently to make ranged weapons competitive with melee weapons in dungeons and fractals.

we’re not talking about change here. we’re also not saying “competitive” (in the sense of 1:1 or something like that). you’re the one bringing those notions to the table, not me.

i’m saying ranged is not as detrimental to group performance as extremists like to tout. and sometimes, it really is better to be at range. melee dps is not always the preferred option.

nothing novel in that

Archon.6480:

Against 3 targets, axe is always dealing more dps than sword… At least, I’ve never been able to hit for 4500 with sword swipe.

Anecdotal evidence is great and all, but let’s use math to explain why this isn’t true.

Sword 3 Targets:
16.66 sword AA chains in 30 seconds =
( 3*17(0.6) + 17(0.6) + 3*16(0.7) ) / 30 = 2.48

This is ~ 15k DPS

Axe multi target
(3 (0.5)) / 1.0 = 1.5
Assume melee range and wiki cycle time of 1.0 is correct.

This ~9k DPS without including splitblades or bleeds.

I’m not going to include it because it would require me to record hitting the training golem for something I know isn’t going to make up a 6k dps differential.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Archon.6480:

Against 3 targets, axe is always dealing more dps than sword… At least, I’ve never been able to hit for 4500 with sword swipe.

Anecdotal evidence is great and all, but let’s use math to explain why this isn’t true.

Sword 3 Targets:
16.66 sword AA chains in 30 seconds =
( 3*17(0.6) + 17(0.6) + 3*16(0.7) ) / 30 = 2.48

This is ~ 15k DPS

Axe multi target
(3 (0.5)) / 1.0 = 1.5
Assume melee range and wiki cycle time of 1.0 is correct.

This ~9k DPS without including splitblades or bleeds.

I’m not going to include it because it would require me to record hitting the training golem for something I know isn’t going to make up a 6k dps differential.

Your equations don’t model what we are discussing and are more useless than what you presume is anecdotal evidence.

Archon.6480:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Archon.6480:

Against 3 targets, axe is always dealing more dps than sword… At least, I’ve never been able to hit for 4500 with sword swipe.

Anecdotal evidence is great and all, but let’s use math to explain why this isn’t true.

Sword 3 Targets:
16.66 sword AA chains in 30 seconds =
( 3*17(0.6) + 17(0.6) + 3*16(0.7) ) / 30 = 2.48

This is ~ 15k DPS

Axe multi target
(3 (0.5)) / 1.0 = 1.5
Assume melee range and wiki cycle time of 1.0 is correct.

This ~9k DPS without including splitblades or bleeds.

I’m not going to include it because it would require me to record hitting the training golem for something I know isn’t going to make up a 6k dps differential.

Your equations don’t model what we are discussing and are more useless than what you presume is anecdotal evidence.

What are we discussing then? The OP asked for MELEE recommendations, a bunch of people started recommending ranged weapons, and some have stated that it’s a “bit less DPS” than melee. You said that axe does more damage than sword in 3 target scenarios which is not true at all.

OP wrote something, someone commented. it’s rather typical for a forum, innit ;-D

but yeah it’s a good idea to chuck away at a test golem every once in a while, just to revisit the circumstances.

I took the time to test it for fun.

Axe: (2 > 3 > 1 Rotation)

Ricochet: 21
Splitblade: 4
Winter’s Bite: 3

( 21(0.5) + 4(0.5) + 3(0.5) ) / 30 = 0.466 for single target.
( 3*21(0.5) + 5*4(0.5) + 3(0.5) ) / 30 = 1.433 for multi target assuming split blades target limit is 5

This works out to be 9226.19 DPS without including the bleeds from Splitblade
Spltblade with 25 might and zerker gear will do 3019 damage.
(3019 * 4) /30 = 402.53 dps increase for single target
402.53 * 5 = 2012 DPS for for 5 targets

Total: 11238 DPS

Tl;dr GS > Sword > Axe for AoE

Rotation Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkITjOIJeg4
Spreadsheet : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XbeQMg-1QdPWWiYYAkXJz8sHdVWrP-c2Ac8C_uPtLyA/edit?usp=sharing

If you read my post before i editted, i forgot to divide by 30 lol

TurtleDragon.3108:

Archon.6480:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Archon.6480:

Against 3 targets, axe is always dealing more dps than sword… At least, I’ve never been able to hit for 4500 with sword swipe.

Anecdotal evidence is great and all, but let’s use math to explain why this isn’t true.

Sword 3 Targets:
16.66 sword AA chains in 30 seconds =
( 3*17(0.6) + 17(0.6) + 3*16(0.7) ) / 30 = 2.48

This is ~ 15k DPS

Axe multi target
(3 (0.5)) / 1.0 = 1.5
Assume melee range and wiki cycle time of 1.0 is correct.

This ~9k DPS without including splitblades or bleeds.

I’m not going to include it because it would require me to record hitting the training golem for something I know isn’t going to make up a 6k dps differential.

Your equations don’t model what we are discussing and are more useless than what you presume is anecdotal evidence.

What are we discussing then? The OP asked for MELEE recommendations, a bunch of people started recommending ranged weapons, and some have stated that it’s a “bit less DPS” than melee. You said that axe does more damage than sword in 3 target scenarios which is not true at all.

I already gave “MELLE” recommendations. Your examples are against the golem (single PvP target) and you exclude the important factors (weapon speed, skill cooldown, conditions, effect of boons from other weapon skills, etc).

The only way I’ve found to accurately calculate damage output is with basic addition. You must record the damage output in the log against a target over fixed time, and then add in the condition damage (which is hard because it varies quickly). In this way many of the unseen factors are included.

As an example, in a 20s trial against vet crab in southsun, LB does 9,400, axe/Warhorn deals 7,460 raw damage. Poison and bleed deal 20,380 for a total of around 38,000 over 20 seconds which is about 1,900 damage per second. Of course, this is without allies and utilities which change everything. The addition of a fire source will add an extra 9k damage over 20s.

Please note I am not advocating one build over another or one weapon over another. My recommendations are for sword/torch and GS for dungeons with carrion stats. I am simply pointing out that each weapon can be more effective than another depending on circumstances. Theoretical calculations against stationary target golem are not very helpful in determining “the highest damage dealing weapon,” as this will vary depending on the number of enemies and allies and what boons they are giving.

So I’ll say again, axe will deal more damage then 1h sword in some circumstances, and vise versa. Axe is more powerful against multiple targets and sword against single target, only if you can stay at PB range and pound them. This is not always true, as in many fractals encounters.

TurtleDragon.3108:

I took the time to test it for fun.

awesome =) empirical video!

what i don’t get is why your damage seems to be noteably slower than mine. are you going untraited?

what the **** is wrong with you people?
carrion melee ranger?
axe dmg higher or better than sword ?

show me where you do 7k+ auto hits with axe
the aftercast from auto hit is about 3/4 sec so you got 1 axe on bosses every sec..this is more than bad.

carrrion on full melee ranger is a waste of two stats, you dont need condition dmg on gs and you dont need it on sword, only your torch benefit from it, in normal groups you got 1 guard and 1 ele so burning already exists perma on target.

and vitailty..okay if you need some more hp take 2-3 pieces of soldier armor np

Bambula.3649:

axe dmg higher or better than sword ?

you clearly haven’t been paying attention to the details of the thread…

Archon.6480:

snip

I don’t think you understand how spreadsheeting and theorcrafting works. I did take into account all of those things you mentioned. I did not include some of the more unrealistic buffs such as 2nd untraited frost spirit, strength booster and 25 bloodlust stacks.

The whole point is to find out what the theoretical DPS is without unforseen factors. In a dungeon and fractal scenerio, your DPS is going to vary a lot depending on how well your party is maintaining buffs/debuffs, so addition is only accurate for that one particular fight. We also don’t have any real DPS meters in this game.

Here’s a basic guide to theorycrafting:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/23yg8j/guide_to_pve_dps_theorycraft/

This comment in particular addresses your concerns about target dummy tests: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/23yg8j/guide_to_pve_dps_theorycraft/ch1zhp2

Also, Carrion gear is terrible in PvE. If you can’t melee every encounter in this game, then that is a problem with either the player, your strategy or your team composition.

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

TurtleDragon.3108:

I took the time to test it for fun.

awesome =) empirical video!

what i don’t get is why your damage seems to be noteably slower than mine. are you going untraited?

In the rotation videos, it does not matter what gear you use or how much damage you do. We are looking at the # of times you cast skills in a 30 second window. I think i was using settlers or apothecary amulet lol.

Bambula.3649:

what the **** is wrong with you people?
carrion melee ranger?
axe dmg higher or better than sword ?

show me where you do 7k+ auto hits with axe

….nonsense like this is why so many people hate bringing rangers along on anything. 7k auto hits with sword? Laugh. That means you would kill a bunker warrior in 3-4 strikes! Rangers are OP! OP! Anyhow, go full zerker with scholars and damage sigils. Silly one trick pony builds are only good for theory. A complete beginner can figure out if you put everything into damage you will “do max damage.” I am just saying it is more or less useless.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Also, Carrion gear is terrible in PvE. If you can’t melee every encounter in this game, then that is a problem with either the player, your strategy or your team composition.

I’ll leave the level 40 OP with this statement. It’s easy to test. Get a set of max zerker gear with damage runes and sigils and play any content you want. Use the sword auto attack as much as possible. If you get squashed repeatedly it’s YOUR fault as per Turtle (don’t forget to dodge please!).

Next try it with full set of carrion placing your traits in marksmanship and survival. If you get squashed, it is MY fault for giving you bad advice. I’ll stand by that. Use hydromancy and geomancy sigils on the 1h sword and torch. On the GS you can use geomancy and doom if you have trouble with 100% up time on poison. Just focus on keeping your opponents on fire and poisoned. Use birds, dogs, or cats. Have them attack with you. Pretty straight forward.

TurtleDragon.3108:

If you can’t melee every encounter in this game, then that is a problem with either the player, your strategy or your team composition.

please, we don’t need this kind of hyperbole. it’s simply not fruitful to the discourse.

Zenguy.6421:

What do you recommend for PvE melee with a Ranger?

I’m levelling a Ranger (level 40 atm) and because I naturally tend to ranged characters (and ranged rather than melee games) it’s very tempting to just stick with bows. But I know this is missing out on a huge part of both the Ranger and GW2 in general. I’ve been trying the Ranger’s melee weapons but so far haven’t got a feel for them.

What are the different Ranger’s melee weapons best for?
And what sorts combinations work well with the different Ranger melee skills?

I have a friend who runs an 80 Ranger with greatsword and longbow. There is some surprisingly nice synergy between the two weapons that makes for a tanky, up close ranger. Longbow gives you stealth and knockback, while greatsword gives you free evades, gap closer, parry and daze. Anyway, I don’t have his complete build and I’m not a number cruncher but he has a blast with it and you can certainly spend most of your time in melee with it. He runs with burst damage birdies to keep his DPS up.

Carrion isn’t even available at lvl 40 and you have to wait till level 80 now for grandmaster traits. Like an above poster said, it’s a big waste on GS as one of the 3 stats doesn’t even effect it.

Dying and making mistakes is part of the learning process. No rational person expects you to play perfectly, nor should you. You should always be looking to improve your play, and you won’t get better if you blame your team or the game instead of yourself. Sometimes it’s beyond your control, but more often than not there’s usually at least one thing you could have done better.

Also, I could care less what you run in Open world, levelling, WvWvW, PvP, but in dungeons/fractals the gear to use is zerker. Condition damage, defensive stats are signs of bad, inexperienced, or lazy (take your pick) players. The gear says to me “I’m not comfortable enough going full zerker or knowledgeable/experienced enough to know why it’s optimal for dungeons.” This is made even worse by the fact that the dungeon content has mostly been the same for the past 2 years and in some cases, has even gotten easier since then (Better gear, Apr 15 patch). We’ve done the encounters 100’s of times and everything is scripted and predictable. Every encounter is melee-able and you do not need defensive gear or condition damage for most scenarios. The majority of your survivability comes from Active Mitigation. It’s also a team effort, and if your team is struggling with a certain strategy, adapt to the situation instead of banging your head against the wall repeating the same thing that caused you to fail in the first place.

Condition damage is also vastly inferrior to Direct damage in dungeons/fractals because this game has a horrible system for it. It has less burst, less cleave, less theoretical damage, has a cap, scales off 2 stats instead of 3, and has less modifiers/buffs. Certain enemies can also clear conditions or are immune to them.

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

TurtleDragon.3108:

If you can’t melee every encounter in this game, then that is a problem with either the player, your strategy or your team composition.

please, we don’t need this kind of hyperbole. it’s simply not fruitful to the discourse.

It isn’t hyperbole, so it is fruitful to the discussion. Using ranged in dungeons makes them unbearably long. Add in carrion gear? Arah P4 would take you what, 6 hours?

Don’t confuse successful dungeon runs for thinking ranged carrion gear is successful. Those berserker warriors and guardians were probably what was successful.

Fluffball.8307:

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

TurtleDragon.3108:

If you can’t melee every encounter in this game, then that is a problem with either the player, your strategy or your team composition.

please, we don’t need this kind of hyperbole. it’s simply not fruitful to the discourse.

It isn’t hyperbole, so it is fruitful to the discussion. Using ranged in dungeons makes them unbearably long. Add in carrion gear? Arah P4 would take you what, 6 hours?

Don’t confuse successful dungeon runs for thinking ranged carrion gear is successful. Those berserker warriors and guardians were probably what was successful.

please pay attention to the details of the conversations. i never proponed carrion.

and no, not every encounter lends itself well to melee. there are several bosses (even trash here and there) where range is preferred/advised.

the emphasis (bolded part) in that statement of yours is a clear example of exactly the kind of hyperbole we don’t need. such blanket statements are pretty much useless, and only serve to mislead people seeking information about the game.

Fluffball.8307:

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

TurtleDragon.3108:

If you can’t melee every encounter in this game, then that is a problem with either the player, your strategy or your team composition.

please, we don’t need this kind of hyperbole. it’s simply not fruitful to the discourse.

It isn’t hyperbole, so it is fruitful to the discussion. Using ranged in dungeons makes them unbearably long. Add in carrion gear? Arah P4 would take you what, 6 hours?

Don’t confuse successful dungeon runs for thinking ranged carrion gear is successful. Those berserker warriors and guardians were probably what was successful.

Your comments are laughable. Oh no you didn’t pull the Arah P4 card on me! Good luck beating the snot out of that straw man… Who said anything about ranged carrion gear?

Carrion gear with torch, sword and fire traps works really well in dungeons against everything. Fire fields are so very powerful, it’s just hard to compete with. If you don’t like carrion don’t use it. I don’t care, but it is disingenuous to tell everyone the damage output is inferior in a group. Nonsense. Driving newer players into “beserker or nothing for dungeons” gear on a ranger is very misleading.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Carrion isn’t even available at lvl 40 and you have to wait till level 80 now for grandmaster traits. Like an above poster said, it’s a big waste on GS as one of the 3 stats doesn’t even effect it.

Dying and making mistakes is part of the learning process. No rational person expects you to play perfectly, nor should you. You should always be looking to improve your play, and you won’t get better if you blame your team or the game instead of yourself. Sometimes it’s beyond your control, but more often than not there’s usually at least one thing you could have done better.

Also, I could care less what you run in Open world, levelling, WvWvW, PvP, but in dungeons/fractals the gear to use is zerker. Condition damage, defensive stats are signs of bad, inexperienced, or lazy (take your pick) players. The gear says to me “I’m not comfortable enough going full zerker or knowledgeable/experienced enough to know why it’s optimal for dungeons.” This is made even worse by the fact that the dungeon content has mostly been the same for the past 2 years and in some cases, has even gotten easier since then (Better gear, Apr 15 patch). We’ve done the encounters 100’s of times and everything is scripted and predictable. Every encounter is melee-able and you do not need defensive gear or condition damage for most scenarios. The majority of your survivability comes from Active Mitigation. It’s also a team effort, and if your team is struggling with a certain strategy, adapt to the situation instead of banging your head against the wall repeating the same thing that caused you to fail in the first place.

Condition damage is also vastly inferrior to Direct damage in dungeons/fractals because this game has a horrible system for it. It has less burst, less cleave, less theoretical damage, has a cap, scales off 2 stats instead of 3, and has less modifiers/buffs. Certain enemies can also clear conditions or are immune to them.

Your conclusions about condition damage are wrong. And your recommendations for zerkers ranger in fractals is ridiculous. Anyone who has made it far will know that will get one shoted repeatedly. And you wont be able to avoid it. But go ahead, show us your zerker ranger with sword at fractals 50 video. Would love to see that.

that baby stealing dingo.7216:

Zenguy.6421:

What do you recommend for PvE melee with a Ranger?

I’m levelling a Ranger (level 40 atm) and because I naturally tend to ranged characters (and ranged rather than melee games) it’s very tempting to just stick with bows. But I know this is missing out on a huge part of both the Ranger and GW2 in general. I’ve been trying the Ranger’s melee weapons but so far haven’t got a feel for them.

What are the different Ranger’s melee weapons best for?
And what sorts combinations work well with the different Ranger melee skills?

I have a friend who runs an 80 Ranger with greatsword and longbow. There is some surprisingly nice synergy between the two weapons that makes for a tanky, up close ranger. Longbow gives you stealth and knockback, while greatsword gives you free evades, gap closer, parry and daze. Anyway, I don’t have his complete build and I’m not a number cruncher but he has a blast with it and you can certainly spend most of your time in melee with it. He runs with burst damage birdies to keep his DPS up.

Agreed. Greatsword and Longbow compliment each other well in power build. All around GS is nice melle weapon. 3 is a leap finisher, which is really nice and Maul just feels good

Archon.6480:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Also, Carrion gear is terrible in PvE. If you can’t melee every encounter in this game, then that is a problem with either the player, your strategy or your team composition.

I’ll leave the level 40 OP with this statement. It’s easy to test. Get a set of max zerker gear with damage runes and sigils and play any content you want. Use the sword auto attack as much as possible. If you get squashed repeatedly it’s YOUR fault as per Turtle (don’t forget to dodge please!).

Next try it with full set of carrion placing your traits in marksmanship and survival. If you get squashed, it is MY fault for giving you bad advice. I’ll stand by that. Use hydromancy and geomancy sigils on the 1h sword and torch. On the GS you can use geomancy and doom if you have trouble with 100% up time on poison. Just focus on keeping your opponents on fire and poisoned. Use birds, dogs, or cats. Have them attack with you. Pretty straight forward.

If you’re getting squashed in Carrion gear it is bad advice, because you gave up all your damage for survivability and died anyway.

At least with zerker maybe you killed something before you died. If you die in Carrion you didn’t kill anything and you’re still dead.

Also if you really want to take a tank stat without giving up DPS, take Zealots. If you can’t afford that, take Knights. Carrion is just lol.

Archon.6480:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Carrion isn’t even available at lvl 40 and you have to wait till level 80 now for grandmaster traits. Like an above poster said, it’s a big waste on GS as one of the 3 stats doesn’t even effect it.

Dying and making mistakes is part of the learning process. No rational person expects you to play perfectly, nor should you. You should always be looking to improve your play, and you won’t get better if you blame your team or the game instead of yourself. Sometimes it’s beyond your control, but more often than not there’s usually at least one thing you could have done better.

Also, I could care less what you run in Open world, levelling, WvWvW, PvP, but in dungeons/fractals the gear to use is zerker. Condition damage, defensive stats are signs of bad, inexperienced, or lazy (take your pick) players. The gear says to me “I’m not comfortable enough going full zerker or knowledgeable/experienced enough to know why it’s optimal for dungeons.” This is made even worse by the fact that the dungeon content has mostly been the same for the past 2 years and in some cases, has even gotten easier since then (Better gear, Apr 15 patch). We’ve done the encounters 100’s of times and everything is scripted and predictable. Every encounter is melee-able and you do not need defensive gear or condition damage for most scenarios. The majority of your survivability comes from Active Mitigation. It’s also a team effort, and if your team is struggling with a certain strategy, adapt to the situation instead of banging your head against the wall repeating the same thing that caused you to fail in the first place.

Condition damage is also vastly inferrior to Direct damage in dungeons/fractals because this game has a horrible system for it. It has less burst, less cleave, less theoretical damage, has a cap, scales off 2 stats instead of 3, and has less modifiers/buffs. Certain enemies can also clear conditions or are immune to them.

Your conclusions about condition damage are wrong. And your recommendations for zerkers ranger in fractals is ridiculous. Anyone who has made it far will know that will get one shoted repeatedly. And you wont be able to avoid it. But go ahead, show us your zerker ranger with sword at fractals 50 video. Would love to see that.

Saying something is wrong without elaborating on it adds nothing to the argument. Explain why condition damage builds are worth bringing to dungeons/fractals or refute my claims against it instead of just saying “You’re wrong.”

I’m quite experienced in fractals, they were my favourite dungeon content to run while I was an active player. Fractals are basically all I did from before I quit playing this game, daily [31-40] + [41-50] tier with guild zerker group. It’s difficult but not impossible, and some of the fight mechanics don’t allow you to use sword so you need to GS. As a ranger, you can melee all the fights in fractals with the right combination of skill, strategy, experience and team composition, but you can’t 100% sword all of fractals.

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

snip

I’m not Fluffball, but he is pretty much right.

Ranged dps is generally inferrior DPS wise to melee in most cases, and will generally be out of range of buffs so it’s even worse in practice.

Could you name what trash and boss fights in dungeons/fractals that where “range is preferred/advised”

Fluffball.8307:

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

TurtleDragon.3108:

If you can’t melee every encounter in this game, then that is a problem with either the player, your strategy or your team composition.

please, we don’t need this kind of hyperbole. it’s simply not fruitful to the discourse.

It isn’t hyperbole, so it is fruitful to the discussion. Using ranged in dungeons makes them unbearably long. Add in carrion gear? Arah P4 would take you what, 6 hours?

Don’t confuse successful dungeon runs for thinking ranged carrion gear is successful. Those berserker warriors and guardians were probably what was successful.

Warriors and guardians? I can hear the elementalist, Mesmer, and thief, crying…

I could easily say the same. Don’t confuse successful dungeon runs with berserker gear as being successful either. But that sounds rather arrogant. I’d rather say, don’t consider those runs optimal. Any personal damage output gained in zerker gear is lost in the lack of might boons on allies. At best it’s a wash.

I encourage anyone curious to try the two. The results should speak for themselves. You won’t need a damage meter or excel spreadsheet to see the difference. A stopwatch will do fine…

Archon.6480:

Any personal damage output gained in zerker gear is lost in the lack of might boons on allies.

So… explain how using Berserker Gear leads to less might on allies. Unless you’re using giver’s gear (lol), Gear choice has literally no impact on might duration. Runes/Traits/Playstyle however…

TurtleDragon.3108:

Ranged dps is generally inferrior DPS wise to melee in most cases, and will generally be out of range of buffs so it’s even worse in practice.

we can most certainly agree that it is generally “inferior” – however, the degree of inferiority is exactly what i’ve been speaking about/against here. some people make it sound like melee is 100% and ranged is 0%. that’s a silly attitude. as long as people are using their skills properly (gear and traits too, obv.), there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with being ranged. it’s “a bit less dps” most of the time, but then again, it’s safer most of the time too, so there’s a clear benefit – see below – and it’s not like it’s impossible to stay in boon range even if you’re not melee.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Could you name what trash and boss fights in dungeons/fractals that where “range is preferred/advised”

anytime you’ve got either pbaoe or in general huge melee hits, distance is (can be, given all the circumstances) good. not all players/professions have the capacity for keeping up dodges/blocks, let alone sufficient damage mitigation, let alone the fortune of being in some sort of optimal party configuration.

bottom line remains: too many extremes in the (loud part of the) gw2 discourse. we need more moderation/nuance.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Fractals are basically all I did from before I quit playing this game, daily [31-40] + [41-50] tier with guild zerker group.

And this ends the debate. I call BS on 41 to 50 “berserker fractals group.” You don’t even play the game anymore. And I am getting tired of explaining everything. I’ve beaten 49 and 50 countless times with every king of group you can imagine. Full zerker groups… Yeah, whatever.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Archon.6480:

Any personal damage output gained in zerker gear is lost in the lack of might boons on allies.

So… explain how using Berserker Gear leads to less might on allies. Unless you’re using giver’s gear (lol), Gear choice has literally no impact on might duration. Runes/Traits/Playstyle however…

Slay that straw man!

Archon.6480:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Fractals are basically all I did from before I quit playing this game, daily [31-40] + [41-50] tier with guild zerker group.

And this ends the debate. I call BS on 41 to 50 “berserker fractals group.” You don’t even play the game anymore. And I am getting tired of explaining everything. I’ve beaten 49 and 50 countless times with every king of group you can imagine. Full zerker groups… Yeah, whatever.

https://www.youtube.com/user/turtledragonx/videos
I have 3 fractal runs on my channel. All of them were casual runs, 1 of which was not with my current guild. These are all recent.

At this point, I’m assuming you don’t have any arguments to support your claims or dispute mine which is why you’re trying to make arguments out of nothing.

I’m also in a speed running guild (Coldsnap [IX]). Members are expected to play in full berserker gear with DPS builds for dungeons and fractals so any guild run I do is a berserker group. It’s the norm.

I still log in once in a while to do arah/fotm or chat with guildies, but the days of doing every dungeon to farm gold are long over for me.

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

we can most certainly agree that it is generally “inferior” – however, the degree of inferiority is exactly what i’ve been speaking about/against here. some people make it sound like melee is 100% and ranged is 0%. that’s a silly attitude. as long as people are using their skills properly (gear and traits too, obv.), there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with being ranged. it’s “a bit less dps” most of the time, but then again, it’s safer most of the time too, so there’s a clear benefit – see below – and it’s not like it’s impossible to stay in boon range even if you’re not melee.

I get that you want to make it not sound as bad, but you can mathematically prove the degree of inferriority. For example, under the same conditions, axe is about half as much DPS as sword on single target.

I’ll spare you the math, but it can get pretty extreme, in the range of 20-80% DPS less because the associated playstyles do not let them try to optimize DPS. Generally they’ll be playing with less than 9 might, use no food and potions, etc., non meta builds, not understand the combo field system etc. Even if they did play it perfectly, it’s still inferior by a fair margin.

Ranging is safer, but the more experienced players will only do so if absolutely necessary. I was also hoping you could name specific examples of ranged fights.

Archon.6480:

Oh no you didn’t pull the Arah P4 card on me!

Yes I did. If I said an experience group in CoF1 takes 30 minutes with everyone using ranged (or carrion or whatever homebrew you want to insert) versus 10 minutes with everyone in melee berserker, no one would care. But I often do multiple, or all dungeon paths in a day, and good lord does that time add up. It’s not just melee berserker kills things faster, it makes the run go smoother in the process, and that decreases the time exponentially. The less time you’re in combat, the less time you have for things to go wrong.

Arah4 is my metaphor for multiple dungeon paths.

Archon.6480:

Who said anything about ranged carrion gear?

It’s just a general reply to people using ridiculous builds like sentinels or longbow or whatever.

Archon.6480:

If you don’t like carrion don’t use it. I don’t care, but it is disingenuous to tell everyone the damage output is inferior in a group

This isn’t an opinon, it’s fact. I don’t understand how you can argue berserkers isn’t the highest possible damage. I need a smiley with ??? over its head.

TurtleDragon.3108:

I get that you want to make it not sound as bad, but you can mathematically prove the degree of inferriority. For example, under the same conditions, axe is about half as much DPS as sword on single target.

I’ll spare you the math, but it can get pretty extreme, in the range of 20-80% DPS less because the associated playstyles do not let them try to optimize DPS. Generally they’ll be playing with less than 9 might, use no food and potions, etc., non meta builds, not understand the combo field system etc. Even if they did play it perfectly, it’s still inferior by a fair margin.

i wouldn’t personally be using axe on single target, so that point seems moot to me. unless it was a quick swap to fire off warhorn, of course.

who’s this “they” you refer to? we can’t boil down the discussion to “bad players”.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Ranging is safer, but the more experienced players will only do so if absolutely necessary. I was also hoping you could name specific examples of ranged fights.

note that i’m running PUGs. i don’t have a guild for optimal party configuration. i do happen upon great parties now and then, and can certainly tell the difference, but any risk you’re willing to take depends on the capabilites of the other players (as a ranger, i mean – it’s a general point too, but it means something specific in this case).

i’m sure you remember some of those cases where melee was a hazard, back when things weren’t optimal for you. maybe you don’t. but we can’t expect everyone to land in the same circumstances – which is why we need to take the less than optimal into account when “dictating” the setup of players.

i think it’s what you call diplomacy? there’s a learning curve, after all…

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

if you don’t fancy melee, you can totally use bows, or even axe. you’ll have a bit less dps, but you won’t have as much trouble with avoiding damage. just remember to use what you got, don’t just sit back. and look for traits that enhance your preferred style.

geogyf.5087:

can use in some cases 2 axes too

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

piercing arrows is fine… spotter is overrated, though, but it’s true that it’s one of the few immediate group benefits the ranger can slot.

and i’m still not seeing how a bit less dps warrants this dramatic devaluation. have you tested melee vs. ranged dps lately?

It’s stuff like this that gives Ranger such a terrible stigma. Thinking that it’s good to use other weapons that are just terrible damage wise, in a damage meta where it’s all about doing maximum damage.

I’m all for playing how you want, but don’t pretend a set up is better than the meta (i.e best)

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

snip

I really don’t have much more to add to this discussion without degrading it into insulting and defining bad players. At the end of the day, it’s up to you to decide what’s appropriate for the situation. Don’t be a blind meta sheep or hate on it just because its meta, try to understand why it’s the way it is and form your own playstyle from here. Like another poster in a different thread said, I personally do not enjoy doing half the DPS of melee players by ranging.

Grok said it best

I’m all for playing how you want, but don’t pretend a set up is better than the meta (i.e best)

people have got to start reading in detail.

no one has been saying that ranged will be better, always, period in this thread.

i’ve been trying to explain that lots of people are exaggerating the inferiority of ranged (ranger).

add to that, the tendency to think everything in the setting of optimally configured speed runs.

seriously, read – and stop thinking in extremes.

i’m not proponing any kind of ranged ranger dps superiority. i’ve got all professions (all berserker) and i feel the differences quite clearly, having experimented a lot. but i’m not willing to stoop to the level of extremist rhetorics in describing the various options available to players in this game.

The issue is that people are going to have different standards for acceptable DPS trade offs. Would you consider 10% less DPS to be a good trade away? How about 20? 50?

For example, let’s say I consider more than 10% less DPS without any significant advantages gained to venture in to “Play how you want” territory. A more casual person may think doing 35% less DPS but having more fun is acceptable.

Guess: absolute best case scenario (and impractical) is going to have bows in the range of **70-85% sword DPS.

It’s more of a different standards issue than exaggeration, because in both practical play and theory, ranged weapons for Rangers suck.

**is a guess by comparing coeffecient of DPS, and then boosting it by 10%. LB in particular, is by far the most annoying to analyze. It has a cooldown reduction trait, non auto attack rotation with 3 different DPS based on your distance from your target. I just took the best case scenario, max range with max buffs. SB also has a non trivial amount of bleeds to consider.