“Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Is melee worth it?
Heartseeker
Pistol Whip
…that is all
Melee on thief is prettykittengood. You shouldn’t be getting killed fast unless youre not using your abilities like dodge, stealth, blinds, daze … etc. We got tons of ways to mitigate damage. But if you just run up and spam without paying attention you’re gonna have a bad time when that champ one shots ya with his power attack.
We do have good melee with very high damage. We’re also pretty weak and can get one-shotted.
As Whargoul says, damage mitigation is important. Look for casting animations, know the fights, know when to dodge. There are plenty of mobs both in and out of dungeons that will take us from full health to post-toastie in 1 second. A good example, is Kol in Harathi. He has a very vivid animation when he is about to do a stomp. That stomp will most likely kill you, if not put you on your bum for a bit with 5% health. But you can melee him, if you know when to dodge.
Melee is worth it. I’m playing Dagger/Dagger on my lvl80 thief for quite a long time (think since I’m lvl35 ?) and it is worth it. The damage is quite high and you won’t die, if you’re playing right. The thief is not like the guardian (or warrior), jumping in, standing still while bursting and healing. The thief jumps in, attacks a few times and jumps out when the enemy attacks, or just evades the attack with one of his abilities (like the #3 on D/D). You stealth, jump over enemies, dodge around them or just move out for a few seconds. Just don’t stand still =)
(I’m not saying warrior or guadrian could always just stand in the middle of a fight, but they have more skills to stay a pretty long time in comparison with the thief)
But in WvW you must know when to enter in melee range. Jumping into a zerg will always be a free kill for the other team, while bursting someone who would flee is absolutely insane =)
(edited by anonim.5932)
“Is melee worth it?” Yes, if you think you can probably get away in time before you take too much damage. No if you probably can’t, since a flattened thief doesn’t contribute as much to a fight as a thief using ranged weapons does.
In my opinion, if you’re having trouble with mobs knocking you out, you should try dodging, or stealthing, or blinding, or dazing, or… well, pretty much anything, except fighting while staying still. To put it somewhat bluntly, thieves are not built for that.
Black Powder, best tank in the game.
Don’t take life too seriously, no one gets out alive anyway.
In PvP you cannot do sufficient damage at ranged to actually kill people. Main hand pistol and shortbow are not efficient weapons for dropping players. they are good at ranged harrassment. you can weaken the other team by a significant amount with your ranged attacks but its really a group support thing, and not viable as a primary damage dealer.
To efficiently drop players in PvP you really have to melee with either Sword+Pistol or Dagger+Dagger. the auto-attacks from either set do pretty good damage but really what you’re looking at is the high burst damage from these sets. Pistol Whip, Heartseeker, Death Blossom, and Backstab are the really effective PvP attacks and are worth building your traits and utility skills to support.
So for melee what weapons are the best?
“Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
There is no “the best” combination, it’s YOUR story, be creative. Someone can fight well with daggers, another thief feels great with shortbow, etc. It’s not like you must spec into something or go die.
Signed, level 1 alt
Champion Mobs can hit pretty hard and you need to be on your toes there.
I generally end up ranged on them and boss mobs because there are so many people around I can sometimes barely see what is happening.
Still, any other mob in the game (so far) I feel great going toe to toe against. I played D/D for awhile but recently switched to D/P – and I love it!
I also just “discovered” the joys of steal – a great opener, especially now that I am learning all of the item symbols – and I have the trait that applies poison when I steal. Pistol Whip is a solid follow up. I also use the skills skale venom and spider venom for great damage.
One of the great joys of this approach though is the offhand pistol abilities. Headshot causes the target to become dazed which acts as an interrupt and limits their skill usage for a short bit. It’s great for mobs which have a short buildup to a big attack – like when Ettins have a flashy light in their hand right before flattening you with their club. As soon as I see that light I headshot and they drop their attack and get all grumpy.
Black Powder creates a smoke field which blinds the target and causes them to miss their next attack. The smoke field can also be used by another projectile as a combo to blind that target or another target. I haven’t explored the whole combo system enough to report well on it though.
So – by holding on to initiative and using those offhand abilities judiciously I can stand with mobs for quite a long time if needed – all the way up to them being dead.