John Peters on Melee in GW2

[theredviola]

His post from the GW2 forums:

Hey all. I wanted to talk about this a bit since it is a hot topic here and also on the internets. The intention is that both styles are viable. Certainly right now Melee is more difficult than ranged. There are some things we will try to do to address this, but I think the more you play you would find they are closer than you think.First what’s already there:
1) Melee does more damage. Melee damage is simply higher than ranged damage across the board.
2) Melee has more control. With a few intentional exception Melee has a lot more control than ranged.
What Melee needs:
1) defensive tools on more weapons, particularly on lower armor professions.
2) ai needs to favor Melee a bit less than it currently does.
What else:
Finally because of the more action based nature of combat Melee needs to be taught better. Effective Melee requires skills that translate over from FPS games which are notoriously harder on casual players. You have to wasd to move, constantly aim with your mouse camera, and hit skills on 1-5.
Some tips:
If you have learned any good Melee tips that you think we should pass on to newer players feel free to post them here. I’ll start with a few tips of my own.
- If you don’t have mouse look on when using a skill you will turn to face. I sometimes let go of mouse look as I activate to help me aim through the chaos and then click it back down in between attacks.
- Melee has a lot of hard hitting skills and good setup. Utility skills Can really help set up big Melee attacks. Bulls charge on warrior, scorpion wire on thief, judges intervention on guardian.
- know when to run. No matter what you are not a tank. You have to move in and out avoiding damage. If you have to soak damage try and bring boons like Protection and Regeneration or conditions like Blindness and the very undervalued Weakness.
Thanks for reading this all. Rest assured we will keep working on this and just keep in mind the subtle differences in GW2 combat that take a while to sink in.
Jon

Link: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...e/1#post131324

[Mif]

I already posted it in the one thread, but it probably does deserve a thread on it's own.

Also, that font is rather hard to read.

[Hanto]

I'm glad they know it's an issue. However, telling melee classes how to play a certain way when, a lot of times, that way is just not available seems counter-productive. I don't think my thief had any sort of health-regenerating abilities nor any control-abilities, aside from blind, at his disposal while making his 1-9 trek before I quit playing him. It's not so much of a player issue more than it's just certain things hit us way too hard.

This is, however, my opinion. I look forward to trying a thief again when some changes go through. ^^

Edit: I agree with Mif. The text was a bit difficult to read due to the font.

[theredviola]

Damn at Mif. I should have guessed you'd beat me to the punch on this. :P

Fix'd the font, it was a strait up copy-pasta after all.

[Blufossa]

I already posted it in the one thread, but it probably does deserve a thread on it's own.

Also, that font is rather hard to read.

Yes, and no. :P

OT: I think he's full of it. My Elementalist/Guardian had a far greater level of survivability than my Warrior. My Guardian and Elementalist only got so far because they're much more equipped with boons/conditions than my Warrior, and by that have a higher survivability chance.

Yeah some people can play a Warrior just fine, but I noticed mine even as a Rifle user was really frekkin' squishy.

[Edge-]

Fixed font/size so that it's nice and easy to read.

This pleases me though. I'm glad they acknowledging (already) that melee are in a rougher position than ranged are. That's been one of my biggest gripes throughout every MMO (and nothing significant ever really seems to be done about it).

That being said though, I still see this as less of an issue than usual since there are no pure melee classes. Every "melee" class has different options for ranged damage (just as the "ranged" have melee weapons), so there is some flexibility with the system that other games don't have to work with.

[Underskilled]

I most certainly can vouch that the ai favours melee a bit more

What I would like to see, is melee exploring counterattack a bit more, since right now it seems incredibly weak. Using a mace and sword, you have two counters, but it doesn't help when you block one attack, and take four more in the animation. However, I can see a lot of potential surrounding things like that, which allow you to stay in more, rather than right now, where you can go in for a few seconds, use your skills, and run away with next to zero health.

[theredviola]

Fixed font/size so that it's nice and easy to read.

This pleases me though. I'm glad they acknowledging (already) that melee are in a rougher position than ranged are. That's been one of my biggest gripes throughout every MMO (and nothing significant ever really seems to be done about it).

That being said though, I still see this as less of an issue than usual since there are no pure melee classes. Every "melee" class has different options for ranged damage (just as the "ranged" have melee weapons), so there is some flexibility with the system that other games don't have to work with.

Thanks for the fix, Edge.

And I agree with you, I don't think it's as big an issue in GW2 as it would be in other games where a melee's ranged "weapon" is little more than a cool down. Don't get me wrong, on my thief I quite enjoy pistol/pistol or pistol/dagger set ups. But, I'd also like to equally enjoy my dagger/dagger or dagger/pistol set ups with out having to do a heavy sigh realizing that if I want to live, I need to continue to use a pistol.

Edit: @Underskilled - Your Generalguy avatar makes my day.

[Zogarth]

I played a ranger in the beta only using melee weapons I did not feel underpowered compared to ranged, ofc i could not dmg them all the time, but i had so much mobility and defense.

[Vulpei]

More healing skills would be nice, lots of times when I wasn't instagibbed I dodged out of melee and spent 2 healing skill cds using my ranged skills because I couldn't risk going back in under full health.

Granted I had ranged weapons because this happened a fair amount, but I would still rather melee.

[Bluedragonwolf]

Well, I played a thief all weekend long. Both melee and ranged an equal amount really. He makes some good points.

First what’s already there:
1) Melee does more damage. Melee damage is simply higher than ranged damage across the board.
2) Melee has more control. With a few intentional exception Melee has a lot more control than ranged.

These I noticed most especially in PvP, both the battlegrounds and WvW, especially if I caught someone solo. I might often start out at range forcing someone to use a range to take me on as well, but then shadowstepping to them and whacking them hard in melee for a bit, putting up some conditions and then either back out to range or staying in melee depending on how the fight progressed. This wasn't, however, as visible in PvE, probably because it was far too easy to kite mobs in the early zones.

What Melee needs:
1) defensive tools on more weapons, particularly on lower armor professions.
2) ai needs to favor Melee a bit less than it currently does.

And this is really what relates specifically to PvE IMO. In melee in PvE if you lagged or got unlucky or just moved the wrong way at the wrong time, you could get seriously injured (especially on those light armored classes). Making the AI more balanced in it's use of melee vs ranged might help to balance it up a bit as well, as if timed right you can get in as melee when a mob goes ranged (and yes there are mobs that change, I just didn't see many of them in the starter zones; but I saw more of them in the 20ish areas) and really put in some serious dmg before they change back.


My biggest advice (and I posted this in the a-net thread) is don't just get aggravated and give up on melee, I noticed a lot of people would just give up on melee if they felt it wasn't working. It took me a little while and some extended practice in melee range to figure out what worked and doesn't. AND, I have a feeling that melee is the big difference when it comes to classes, melee on one class feels vastly different from melee on another; whereas ranged, I often got a feeling of sameness whether I was watching a ranger/thief/warrior play from ranged (this is not to say they are the same, just that ranged is ranged; although I'm slightly biased in favor of melee fighting ). Sadly the only other prof I played was an elementalist for a couple hours so I may just be flat out wrong in the ranged feel between the "physical" weapon users, I reserve the right to alter my opinion after the next beta when I will undoubtedly play on of the other "physical" wepaon professions.

[theredviola]

My biggest advice (and I posted this in the a-net thread) is don't just get aggravated and give up on melee, I noticed a lot of people would just give up on melee if they felt it wasn't working. It took me a little while and some extended practice in melee range to figure out what worked and doesn't. AND, I have a feeling that melee is the big difference when it comes to classes, melee on one class feels vastly different from melee on another; whereas ranged, I often got a feeling of sameness whether I was watching a ranger/thief/warrior play from ranged (this is not to say they are the same, just that ranged is ranged; although I'm slightly biased in favor of melee fighting ). Sadly the only other prof I played was an elementalist for a couple hours so I may just be flat out wrong in the ranged feel between the "physical" weapon users, I reserve the right to alter my opinion after the next beta when I will undoubtedly play on of the other "physical" wepaon professions.

This is pretty much how I feel. I played Guardian for the first 6 or so hours, then I went on to make my Necro and toy with ranged. I then decided to try Thief and slowly worked my way back into melee and got back on my Guardian. Ofc, by then I had realized that there are lv.5,10 weapon vendors so I went and got myself a sceptor and staff on my Guardian and did some mix'n'match weapon combos.

In some of the DE's out there, once I got unlocked all the abilities, I found myself bouncing in and out of melee; getting a "good feel" for the class and weapons I needed at specific times. Sometimes I made HORRIBLE choices and ended up either dying, or someone around me died due to a poor weapon choice, but once I got that eb and flow of ranged-melee-ranged, or what ever, down I enjoyed it so much more.

[HatoraDe]

Interesting read. I've never been much of a melee guy in games but I enjoyed playing dagger thief over the weekend quite a bit once I got used to it.

[Hanto]

....
That being said though, I still see this as less of an issue than usual since there are no pure melee classes. Every "melee" class has different options for ranged damage (just as the "ranged" have melee weapons), so there is some flexibility with the system that other games don't have to work with.

That may be so, but when one of the things ANet said that you could do in GW2 was be anything you want and it'd be viable, NEEDING to be ranged to accomplish many things that would otherwise destroy you as a melee seems to be going against that boast (especially when it comes to something as simple as leveling... c'mon). Flexibility or not, some people (myself included) don't want to be a "ranged melee".

[Deleted]

Good to see they'll keep it under their attention.

[Deleted]

The only real issue I had with melee were dynamic events with a lot of players participating. It becomes impossible to know what is attacking you or where their attacks are going to land so you just end up getting destroyed if they target you.

There were some other annoyances though, like warrior's only real damaging greatsword ability other than auto-attack requires you to stand still to channel it. It's so easy to avoid in PVP and even in PVE ranged mobs seem to like to run away from that. You can't even turn while using it so people can just dodge/strafe to the side. Hopefully they'll either bump up the damage a bit on other abilities or make it so that you can move while channeling.

[Deleted]

The only real issue I had with melee were dynamic events with a lot of players participating. It becomes impossible to know what is attacking you or where their attacks are going to land so you just end up getting destroyed if they target you.

There were some other annoyances though, like warrior's only real damaging greatsword ability other than auto-attack requires you to stand still to channel it. It's so easy to avoid in PVP and even in PVE ranged mobs seem to like to run away from that. You can't even turn while using it so people can just dodge/strafe to the side. Hopefully they'll either bump up the damage a bit on other abilities or make it so that you can move while channeling.

U can make a suggestion on the oficcial forums about that
+ alter it , a bit and deflect range attacks

[Pale Cat]

He doesn't address the issue with melee abilities rooting you in place. A lot of guardian and warrior melee skills require you to stand still (maybe other classes too, but I didn't try them). While using them you:
- can't chase your target. Thus, if they dodge or move out of range, your CD is wasted;
- can't dodge. Thus, you're likely to get heavy hit. Yes, you can interrupt the ability, but again it results in CD being wasted, and even then it doesn't happen immediately. I noticed that I had a delay when trying to move or dodge when using Whirling Wrath (guardian greatsword skill).

So far this is my biggest concern about melee :< As opposed to that I only found 1 ranged skill that requires you to stand still: Kill Shot (warrior's rifle burst skill).

And as some people said on the official forums being able to toggle mouse look would help a lot.

[Tekkommo]

One thing that bugged me as melee, was that you would dodge attacks but the npc would stay glued to you and face your direction, so they would just continue to hit you. I find Tera's dodge mechanic better.

Maybe it will change at higher levels where npc's do more cast abilities that you can dodge from? Or am I getting the dodge in this game wrong and dodge is a tool to get out of aoe quicker?

It's the same in PVP, you dodge attack, but you auto face your target, so unless you are dodging out of range, it's pretty useless.

I like to do the dodge move to move behind the target, but all they do is turn around instantly, pve and pvp.

[Deleted]

After the starting zones , theres some mobs that can 1-shot u , so u have to doghe this .
In istances , mobs hit extremply hard .When u doghe , the mob choose an other nearest target
In PvP its like a mini charge or Disengage to avoid or catch enemies

Theres some trait points tthat increase the energy rate of doghe , and u can doghe every 3 sec