I also posted this on official forums, but wanted some feedback from you guys as well. What do you think about this?


I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit. Allot of people seem to think a buff to survivability or damage, or a nerf to champion damage would be the way to go. I disagree.

In structured PvP melee vs ranged on the whole feels balanced. Occational things stand out ofcourse, but it doesn’t seem to be a melee vs ranged issue. This means that buffs to melee would break this balance.

Just nerfing boss damage overall is also not a good idea, as that takes away from the danger and skill of the game. I could agree with some smaller abilites should not oneshot people of the correct level however.

What is my solution then? Well, keep reading and you will see.

1. More sticky aggro.
I’m not talking about an aggro table akin to other MMO’s. What I am saying is that if you currently hold aggro and you dodge out and run, have the mob follow you for a short distance before he decides to attack other people.
This makes sense both logically in my opinion, but also would give the melee more time to prepare for when aggro switch over to them. Instead of the instant “dodge, mob turns around and whack the next closest player” you get some time to do some more DPS, and prepare any cooldowns or dodges you may want to use.

2. Better telegraphing.
Quite often even the big, deadly strikes are not telegraphed very well. ANet need to go through this on all their mobs, and make sure that it’s very clear when you need to get the f**k out of the way.

3. Make ranged less safe
It makes sense that the mobs should sometimes decide it’s a good idea to whack those pesky ranged as well. If there’s a clear path to the ranged (ie, noone physicly blocking the mob from reaching the ranged), give the mobs a reasonable chance to decide to go for ranged instead.
Would also put much more tactic into actually body blocking mobs as a means of protecting your friends, instead of just getting close to the mob and having him turn on you right away.
Also, mobs with ranged abilities should prefer to use their attacks on ranged players, and parhaps use their CC more on melee to protect themselves. Again, makes sense.

4. Give us a little more dodge
2 dodges is a bit on the cheap side. Dodge once too soon? You are in a bad spot. Let us dodge just one additional time from a full dodge bar. It would make a world of difference.

5. When fighting big groups of mobs, make them target different players
While this may not feel very logical, it would make more sense. Have the default behavior be that the mobs are more likely to spread out and attack different targets.
When you have mobs highly clumped up, it’s a deathtrap for melee, cause you can’t possibly keep track of all of them, and you can be smashed to pieces extremely quickly by being attacked by several mobs at a time.

Just these behavioral changes to mobs I believe would make a world of difference.

I also have another suggestion when it comes to WvW. When you have the big sieges, melee feel mostly useless. The only thing you can do is either use siege equipment, or use ranged weapons to fight enemies on the walls.

Give us some way to get up on said walls. The suggestions i’ve heard is siege ladders (quick and cheap to setup, but easy to turn over), and siege towers (expensive to setup, but much harder to push away). This would give melee a whole new role, by getting up on the walls and taking the fight to the enemies right away.