Pure Melee Class?

[Deleted]

youtube.com/watch?v=EMCDGDCKeEk&feature=plcp&context=C4bdc216VDvjVQa1PpcFPmU4rYsxQ0vcD3ih0jyrjxfaJ8AIq rqhE%3D is a pretty good video where TB/TH comments on the gap between ranged and melee and he makes alot of the same complaints I am - excessive AoE, difficult to see attacking coming from crazy particle effects, and similar ranged/melee damage making the risk v.s. reward model less than functional.

But I guess if enough people are commenting on it in beta there will still be time for adjustments.

Problem with that video, and generaly TB comments is that he seems to not be rly good at playing melee, to not say sometimes just bad. Some difficultites which he has in GW2 are because he just play bad, but he is blaming it on game.

Now Im not saying that game is rly balance, it seems to be more unforgiven to melee then ranged, ammount of particle effect and spells in total make it soemtimes dificult to see whats going on. Im just saying that TB often make mistakes in his gameplay, and comment it as game problem, you need to adjust your opinion to that.

I dont know if it was in that video, but he was showing gameplay from two boss fight - mesmer woman and melee man. If they are close, woman getting aoe knocback aura around her. TB instead of switching target to melee mob, was just runing into woman and complaining about how unfair its knocback for melee. That kind of stuff.

At end its liek Lucky_ said, you can pure melee character who very rare go on range, but it propably wont be optimal. On other hand, game isnt relased, we dont know how balance and overall feel of characters will be with lvl 80 when you have all your skills and trait points and can experiment with differnt builds.

[terrahero]

Melee atm seems to be gimped in comparison to ranged (what else is new, right?) So this needs some further balance and tweaking. A pure melee is straigth up worst then a pure ranged.
But the intented purpose is that you play and addept your playstyle. Some fights might requiere you to go pure melee, some might force you into sheer range. So going into such fights with the wrong weapon setups is a good way to gimp yourself.

Basicly there is no pure class, everyone can pretty much cover everything and this is important to get through content. Changing your playstyle and priorities on the fly is the determining factor for skill.

[Dodrin]

No class can play pure melee in PvE, sorry it just doesn't work with the way bosses abilities are. You have to switch between ranged and melee to maximize your damage uptime, or at the very least go with a DPS weapon combo+sword and board combo.

In PvP good players will used ranged. Due to snare and slows and dazes and such, you have to have multiple ways to get into melee range, as well as keep damage on your target. As a warrior, ranged weapons offer you abilities to snare or slow your opponent so you can get back in melee range. You are welcome to play pure melee, just don't' expect to be fully effective in any part of the game.

[Mif]

a pretty good video where TB/TH comments on the gap between ranged and melee

The problem is, most times he dies it has nothing to do with him being melee.
Take a look at his death at 35:00ish, he makes a big point that he died again because he went melee, but if you look at what really happened:



On top of that, for every fight that favors melee, he went ranged for some reason....

[Deleted]

so, you can stay at ranged and:
-avoid melee aoe bullshit
-hit just as hard
-have it easier to see when a mob aggroes you allowing you more time to avoid attacks
so why the fuck would you go into melee again?

then again this was also said in a TB video, that melee is being punished way too much atm to the point where you are gimping yourself by picking up a melee weapon

Why the f*ck you should go melee? Debuffs... If you're dual wielding a sword + mace you can inflict several debuffs --> get back on ranged --> get back on melee when debuffs runs off. That's the only thing I would see myself doing melee for on a boss that requires you to be ranged.

I'm pretty sure they will pull it all in place when people, who test beta, actually perform beta and not playing to level

Like Mif posted above, you can save yourself a lot of trouble --> get out of AoE effects around the boss and still maintain a great amount of DPS. When the AoE damage is gone you can go back in. It brings a much much greater "skill" to this game then WoW did. Since there is no dedicated healer to save your ass, you need to avoid stuff yourself. That's the part that gets me!


EDIT: Really nice discussion here keep it up

[Enosh]

Why the f*ck you should go melee? Debuffs... If you're dual wielding a sword + mace you can inflict several debuffs --> get back on ranged --> get back on melee when debuffs runs off. That's the only thing I would see myself doing melee for on a boss that requires you to be ranged.

for warriors bows apply bleeds and guns burning, mace has weakness iirc, other people in your party can apply that one
edit: heh, funny other way around, guns do the bleeds, bows do burning, a gun skill also applies vulnerability

When the AoE damage is gone you can go back in.

why would you go back in? You would do the same dmg as before, but given much less reaction time if the boss goes after you

As a warrior, ranged weapons offer you abilities to snare or slow your opponent so you can get back in melee range

edit: ah get it now, still why not simply keep shooting at him from range?

[Raxingar]

The people saying you can do "the same damage' from range are wrong, a good melee warrior will out damage a pure range warrior any day. What the range weps do offer is a way to get back into melee to continue with your main set however, so even if you are missing out on a second melee set you can still use the rifle or bow to help close the distance.

Also, the mobility of S+board and greatsword is a little ridiculous together, if you're a skilled player with that settup then you should do fine in pvp. The only place where a ranged weapon swap might be required is explorable dungeons, but only because they are so difficult that any wasted time would likely result in a wipe.

TL;DR Pure melee warriors will defiantly have their place, if thats your preferred style you should be fine with it.

[Durzlla]

Hi all – I have a concern over GW2’s current weapon system allowing all classes to be ranged based fighters.

Namely it is that I *love* being a melee dps and have played WoW great success in both PvE and PvP as a melee. I currently am planning to run as a Warrior with either: 2H/DW or 2H/Sword-N-Board for both PvE and PvP. The idea of sitting at range to dps completely bores me, and I don’t want to be forced into using a ranged weapon. Without having a dedicated healer role a single focused melee seems like a liability in most cases.

When I watch the PvE videos I see lots and lots of constant strong AoE that even ranged classes are falling to (Given some of these players seem bad but just there same there is *A LOT* of it). It seems as though the encounters are being designed with you also having a ranged weapon in mind – and why wouldn't it be? Every warrior video I see shows the warrior swapping to his ranged weapon quite often or using it almost exclusively.

When I watch the PvP videos I usually see either; two groups of 20 or so players standing at range of each other and just chucking spells back and forth without making an effort to advance, or a group defending a keep wall chucking spells down at the attackers who are trying to chuck spells back up at the rampart. Never did I see a group of melee come charge down and create havoc in the ranks and from what I saw - given that everyone has the option to fight at range only the stubborn ones like myself are going to do something that foolish and ultimately being going in alone.

The question is: will Warriors, Guardians and Thieves be able to play as a pure melee class or will they be forced into keeping at least one weapon set dedicated to ranged just because the game will be designed and balanced as such?

I'm going to say yes, from the videos i've seen it looks like melee ranged attacks are just flat out stronger then ranged ones, but as you said, you wont be able to stay in melee 100% of the time so it kinda balances out, you do more damage when you're in melee range, but over all it works out because you'll be kited by ranged, and be hit by more things.

And if you're going 2H/DW i think you'll be struggling, because you'll essentially be damage + more damage which would gimp you a bit in the terms of control and support which you'd be lacking in slightly. However the DW/2H + Sword and Board would be imo a better option cause you get the Damage when you want it, and you get the defense/control of sword and board.

---------- Post added 2012-04-07 at 12:29 PM ----------

The people saying you can do "the same damage' from range are wrong, a good melee warrior will out damage a pure range warrior any day. What the range weps do offer is a way to get back into melee to continue with your main set however, so even if you are missing out on a second melee set you can still use the rifle or bow to help close the distance.

Also, the mobility of S+board and greatsword is a little ridiculous together, if you're a skilled player with that settup then you should do fine in pvp. The only place where a ranged weapon swap might be required is explorable dungeons, but only because they are so difficult that any wasted time would likely result in a wipe.

TL;DR Pure melee warriors will defiantly have their place, if thats your preferred style you should be fine with it.

Actually, a pure range warrior will be doing as good of damage as any other person that's pure range, the thing is though that pure range just simply isn't as powerful as melee (MAYBE longbow ranger/greatsword mesmer will be as strong as melee but i doubt it)

[Klazmaunt]

I'll be playing a Guardian as my main, Thief as one of my alts and you can be damned sure I"ll be in the middle of the enemy causing chaos.

[Noomz]

Hi all – I have a concern over GW2’s current weapon system allowing all classes to be ranged based fighters.

Namely it is that I *love* being a melee dps and have played WoW great success in both PvE and PvP as a melee. I currently am planning to run as a Warrior with either: 2H/DW or 2H/Sword-N-Board for both PvE and PvP. The idea of sitting at range to dps completely bores me, and I don’t want to be forced into using a ranged weapon. Without having a dedicated healer role a single focused melee seems like a liability in most cases.

When I watch the PvE videos I see lots and lots of constant strong AoE that even ranged classes are falling to (Given some of these players seem bad but just there same there is *A LOT* of it). It seems as though the encounters are being designed with you also having a ranged weapon in mind – and why wouldn't it be? Every warrior video I see shows the warrior swapping to his ranged weapon quite often or using it almost exclusively.

When I watch the PvP videos I usually see either; two groups of 20 or so players standing at range of each other and just chucking spells back and forth without making an effort to advance, or a group defending a keep wall chucking spells down at the attackers who are trying to chuck spells back up at the rampart. Never did I see a group of melee come charge down and create havoc in the ranks and from what I saw - given that everyone has the option to fight at range only the stubborn ones like myself are going to do something that foolish and ultimately being going in alone.

The question is: will Warriors, Guardians and Thieves be able to play as a pure melee class or will they be forced into keeping at least one weapon set dedicated to ranged just because the game will be designed and balanced as such?

The reason a lot of beta videos show typical melee oriented characters like the warrior using ranged weaponry, is because people aren't good enough to play melee properly in most cases. People are too inexperienced and afraid to try it.

[Loaf Lord]

Judging how melee will play out based on TBs vid isn't wise. As much as I like him he wasn't playing well in the slightest. As for pvp, they're giving melee a lot of mobility abilities to choose from. And I'm not sure where this whole "beta testers are only using ranged" claim is coming from. Most of the videos I've seen show thieves using their daggers/swords or warriors with their greatsword/hammer etc etc.

[ZerOKami]

In the end it will not be that hard to be a full melee profession, but you have to work around it. That said, if you're in the monster's face you're going to be targeted a lot. A LOT. So, you'll need to get mitigation of sorts (Blinding Shot for Thieves, Whirling Defense for Rangers, Endure Pain for Warriors, Etc.).

Keep in mind, the videos don't reflect the big difference in damage between melee and ranged. If you're a melee and know how to handle yourself, you'll do WAY more damage than any ranged you could get, especially if all the Conditions are applied.

But yes, I say full melee is completely viable, you just have to build around it.

[DrakeWurrum]

You're never going to "sit" at range to "DPS" in this game. Try to watch some gameplay footage of what it's like to use a ranged weapon, because it truly doesn't compare. You won't just be mindlessly going through a rotation of abilities to maximize how much damage you do, and you certainly won't be able to avoid being attacked by bosses since there are no tanks.

If you really want to be melee ALL the time, you can probably do it, but you're gimping yourself. Especially since there are some boss fights where melee damage is completely ineffective. Either you can't get to the boss, they're immune to it, they have a heavy knockback that prevents you from ever getting into melee range, or maybe they just plain reflect melee damage... there's mechanics like that all over.

[solidsheep]

The problem is, most times he dies it has nothing to do with him being melee.
Take a look at his death at 35:00ish, he makes a big point that he died again because he went melee, but if you look at what really happened:



On top of that, for every fight that favors melee, he went ranged for some reason....

Isn't that the problem with melee right now in a nut shell,too much spell effects block the tiny little red ring. I hope they let us be able to make that ring thicker and bolder.

[DrakeWurrum]

Isn't that the problem with melee right now in a nut shell,too much spell effects block the tiny little red ring. I hope they let us be able to make that ring thicker and bolder.

Right now?
Yes.

But ANet already said they're working on it and, frankly, TB's first reaction should've been "Is that lightning cloud dangerous? I'll move just in case." until he learned what spell effects were good/bad, rather than only watching for lines on the ground. Especially since that lightning cloud is the only big effect in the area that's truly noticeable.

Clearly WoW taught him nothing.

[Mif]

Isn't that the problem with melee right now in a nut shell,too much spell effects block the tiny little red ring. I hope they let us be able to make that ring thicker and bolder.

The giant lightning cloud should be enough of a warning. The red ring's job is only to make a clear definition of where the effect ends, so you don't unknowingly stand in something that you think you're safe from.

If you watch the video at 35:00 you can even clearly see a white circle warning that the effect is being cast.

EDIT:
Also, when his teammates are trying to res him and he keeps taking damage, it isn't because the "boss is still doing damage" to him like he claims, it's because his body is in the lightning cloud still. They only manage to get him up after the effect stops.

[DrakeWurrum]

The giant lightning cloud should be enough of a warning.

This is why I'm hating the red circles. People are already planning to use them like a crutch.

[solidsheep]

Right now?
Yes.

But ANet already said they're working on it and, frankly, TB's first reaction should've been "Is that lightning cloud dangerous? I'll move just in case." until he learned what spell effects were good/bad, rather than only watching for lines on the ground. Especially since that lightning cloud is the only big effect in the area that's truly noticeable.

Clearly WoW taught him nothing.

Even if the effects get trimmed down I don't wanna spend my time starring at the ground waiting for a rings to pop up.Maybe light up the corners of the screen like when your about to die to warn us.

[DrakeWurrum]

Even if the effects get trimmed down I don't wanna spend my time starring at the ground waiting for a rings to pop up.Maybe light up the corners of the screen like when your about to die to warn us.

Why would you be staring at the ground waiting for rings to pop up? Do you do that in WoW? Rift? SWTOR?

Personally, I'm planning to move out of giant dangerous-looking effects unless I am 100% positive that it's not deadly. That's how I do it in WoW, and it's kept me alive so far.


I just hope that ANet puts in a graphics option to "emphasize my spell effects" and thus cause ally's spells to look small and puny by comparison, so that enemy spells and my spells are the only big effects I really see.
Also: TB's party did not have a Mesmer, and the boss had Mesmer spells - purple lightning = dead giveaway.

[Ynna]

I hope it's possible to play a pure melee profession. The Warrior I'd like to play would only use melee weapons (I'd probably switch out to a bow or a gun if the situation demands it though) so I hope it's a viable path. It would be a bit silly for it to not be one.