Does being melee put you at a disadvantage?

[Alilei32]

Gotten back to leveling my Guardian and noticed several things that annoy me. First of all when I gain proximity agro and I go in to start my attack a lot of mobs will run past me then make a u-turn and then come back into melee range. Or I actually have to chase them. I dont know who those mobs are chasing cause theres no one else even close to me. Then in DEs I can hardly get in and do any damage with all the wells and grenades and Fire raining down on everything. Sure soloing hearts is easy and I take hardly any damage but again a lot of mobs will run through me and I have to chase them a little ways before they stop which gets really annoying. I hope thats just a bug and will be fixed soon. Also Im pretty sure its only affecting melees cause when I go scepter/torch and start attacking from range mobs will come straight at me and stop in my face like they should. No running through me. Has anyone else noticed this?

[oplawlz]

Sometimes they run past you, lots of times when you get more than one mob they try to "flank" you . . . it's an ai thing I think. As far as it being a disadvantage, not really. You can use a sword/greatsword for gap closing as a guard, or use a scepter or staff as necessary. Just like every other class, you need to use the proper weapon set to achieve the results you want . Just let go of the notion of using only one weapon set all the time--that's not how the game is structured.

[MrBill]

Yeah that happens to me as a warrior also. In large groups I usually use a rifle. While solo sometimes I start with a rifle and then switch to sword and board as they approach me. It seems that problem is they run to where you were when you first agroed, if you approach them also they end up running past you.

[Fencers]

I don't think so. Seems like you should ideally have a ranged and melee weapon as mobs have mechanics that often require you to gtfo or gtfi, so to speak.

[Bearshield]

I don't have a problem with it when I'm soloing, but it's frustrating doing a group event and having the range kill a mob before I can get to it to get a swing in.

[Merendel]

Melee is more dangerous but you'll normaly do more damage than someone useing long ranged attacks. As a warrior I go sword/axe and longbow most of the time. I'll use sword for mobility/bleeds in melee and axe offhand for whirling axe to do alot of damage in an AOE pack. If I take too much heat I'll pull back and use the longbow for AOE. While I can do significant ranged AOE damage with the longbow it pales compaired to what I can dish out if I can stand up close with the sword/axe. Just make sure you have the tools to survive a few seconds in melee if the mobs decide to attack you and know when to dodge back out of range and your not really at a dissadvantage. The bigest issue I have is its sometimes hard to see the telegraphs of what a boss is doing when there's 20 people flinging flashy spell effects.

[Alilei32]

I don't think so. Seems like you should ideally have a ranged and melee weapon as mobs have mechanics that often require you to gtfo or gtfi, so to speak.

But doesnt forcing everyone to have a ranged weapon to go along with their melee weapon go against what guild wars was supposed to be about which is playing how you want without being forced into using certain weapons? I planned on playing my Guardian as Greatsword with a mace/shield. I also wanted to try a warrior using Greatsword and dual axes. But if you are required to have a ranged weapon on you then whats the point?

[Merendel]

I don't have a problem with it when I'm soloing, but it's frustrating doing a group event and having the range kill a mob before I can get to it to get a swing in.

Idealy have some form of mobility to deal with that. Like I said I favor sword MH on my warrior because I can leap at a target every 8s makeing it trivial to get into range before things die.

[oplawlz]

But doesnt forcing everyone to have a ranged weapon to go along with their melee weapon go against what guild wars was supposed to be about which is playing how you want without being forced into using certain weapons? I planned on playing my Guardian as Greatsword with a mace/shield. I also wanted to try a warrior using Greatsword and dual axes. But if you are required to have a ranged weapon on you then whats the point?

With a gs you have both a pull and a leap . . . why would you need a ranged weapon? Also with a shield you have a fontal cone aoe, and your mace gives you an aoe ground attack. Guard ranged is notoriously bad atm, but that really only affects keep seiges . . . we have plenty of ways to get to mobs or bring them to us in pve.

[stormgust]

Most of the difficulty is created that nearly all conditions, abilities, damage is balanced around the fact that you dodgeroll it.
The problem here is, that a lot of abilities are executed instantly, even a lot of those with a "warning" circle, that they occur more often than your endurance allows you to dodge roll, and that there are certain mechanics (perma stun) which cannot be evaded at all, unless you take a specific "gets you out of the danger zone"-trait (which not every class has access to for every possible condition out there).

Instantly and the lack (or you do not want to pick it, cause everything else in the line is useless) of a fail-safe trait is what makes things considerably harder on the melee part. Not to mention that the effect overload is beyond what can be handled, turning even those non-instantenous abilities into not more than a gamble. There's no indicator for abilities beside the animation/effect associated.

[Merendel]

Most of the difficulty is created that nearly all conditions, abilities, damage is balanced around the fact that you dodgeroll it.
The problem here is, that a lot of abilities are executed instantly, even a lot of those with a "warning" circle, that they occur more often than your endurance allows you to dodge roll, and that there are certain mechanics (perma stun) which cannot be evaded at all, unless you take a specific "gets you out of the danger zone"-trait (which not every class has access to for every possible condition out there).

Permastun can be delt with if you plan for it and do not over focus on a single aspect of you character. Every proffession has at least one utility skill that "Breaks Stun" If your geting chained stuned to death poping one of those stun breaks and dodgeing as soon as it fires is the best way to save yourself. Also part of the combat system is learning to adapt to changeing situations. Yes sometimes those AOE circles pop up faster than endurance can regen. Very rarely however are they something instantly lethal and something that comes up that fast. If you try to dodge roll to evade everything you'll just run out of juice. Instead realize that if too many AOE's are droping right at the mobs feet it may be time to back out of melee range for a few seconds till the area clears up unless you think you can just soak the effects

I actualy built my character to be able to soak a good bit of splash damage due to very high regen. I have 3 different effects going (food, healing signet, near permanent regeneration boon) that grant around 400-500 passive healing a second before various combo fields and effects from other players are considered. Minor AOE effects I can just soak in melee if pressed and it takes several stacks of bleed or bleed+poison to counter the natural regeneration. I can't just stand there and tank the bigger hits or even the basic melee swings of a champion+mob for very long but I can hang in melee for quite a while and back out when things get nasty.

[Fencers]

But doesnt forcing everyone to have a ranged weapon to go along with their melee weapon go against what guild wars was supposed to be about which is playing how you want without being forced into using certain weapons? I planned on playing my Guardian as Greatsword with a mace/shield. I also wanted to try a warrior using Greatsword and dual axes. But if you are required to have a ranged weapon on you then whats the point?

Not sure I would say it is forced. It's just a nice thing to have as part of your toolkit. A ranged player could simply stop DPSing when a mob has the reflect projectiles tag or melee run leap out/in for PBAOE.

I played a sword/sword & mace/shield warrior quite a bit. It is doable if that is what worries you. Just gotta be more... twitchy.

[stormgust]

Permastun can be delt with if you plan for it and do not over focus on a single aspect of you character. Every proffession has at least one utility skill that "Breaks Stun"

If the stun is applied on a ~1 sec intervall (actually I tend to it being 0.5 sec) there's exaclty one trait/ability which will save you, once every 60 seconds.
Not gonna work on mobs that use its chain stun more often.

If your geting chained stuned to death poping one of those stun breaks and dodgeing as soon as it fires is the best way to save yourself.

Doesn't work given how fast the stun is reapplied. You'd need to be able to activate both abilities at the same time, using a macro or such. Everything else is countered once you have the slightest amount of lag.

Also part of the combat system is learning to adapt to changeing situations. Yes sometimes those AOE circles pop up faster than endurance can regen. Very rarely however are they something instantly lethal and something that comes up that fast.

You're playing a different game then. While it's not instant all of the time, quite often it's ticking on a speed which will end up near-instant death. If the ability itself doesn't, one of the conditions it applies for sure will.

If you try to dodge roll to evade everything you'll just run out of juice. Instead realize that if too many AOE's are droping right at the mobs feet it may be time to back out of melee range for a few seconds till the area clears up unless you think you can just soak the effects

At this point you're better of just playing ranged. You won't cripple your damage by regularly switching betwene melee/ranged.

I actualy built my character to be able to soak a good bit of splash damage due to very high regen. I have 3 different effects going (food, healing signet, near permanent regeneration boon) that grant around 400-500 passive healing a second before various combo fields and effects from other players are considered. Minor AOE effects I can just soak in melee if pressed and it takes several stacks of bleed or bleed+poison to counter the natural regeneration. I can't just stand there and tank the bigger hits or even the basic melee swings of a champion+mob for very long but I can hang in melee for quite a while and back out when things get nasty.

It's nice that you're playing guardian. But if you require a huge amount of boons/abilities to remove conditions (or traits doing similar), every class which lacks either of those is at a huge disadvantage, even more so if the high-utility classes contribute an equal amount to damage (or damage itself is irrelevant, due to the lack of enrage timers or such).

I'm quite confident that once you played a thief, you'll realize just how "broken" melee in this game can be, or how much of an advantage ranged weapons are.
Now if it weren't for the fact that steal (or rather a trait for it) is one of the only abilities which applies boons to your group, and obviously it will put you in melee range - now the lack of a threat system and a medium-armor melee class usually do not end up well. It's ok for slow-swing time mobs, because you can time around that. Fast swing timer, just hope that the mob doesn't decide to turn around instantly after you stole an ability.

[Riavan]

Pfft, PFFFFT, you platies have no idea.

My warrior is far easier to play than my engineer, can take so many more hits. Sure on certain boss mobs, standing close, not a good idea, but the rest of the time. PFFT, FFFFFFFFFFFFT.

Warriors have great ranged also.

[HBpapa]

Charging you, flanking you, and even keeping distance is a game mechanic; not a bug.


Most guardian weapons either have a root or a gap closer (change/blink). There is also a long distance gap closer you can get with skill points (second tier, I think). Using those effectively can make this a non-issue for the most part.

Scepter.............................root.
Sword...............................blink/teleport.
Hammer.............................root/trap.
Greatsword........................pull/charge.
(just off the top of my head, there are probably others)


I also make sure to keep a scepter and a torch in my bag even if I'm not using it for PvE (I much prefer to weapon switch between melee/melee). There are a few DE's and more than a coupe champions where going melee is just one-shot suicide or mobs stay so spread out that you'd spend most of the fight running between fights. Its as easy as running out of combat, equipping them, and running back to enjoy the experience.

[Merendel]

If the stun is applied on a ~1 sec intervall (actually I tend to it being 0.5 sec) there's exaclty one trait/ability which will save you, once every 60 seconds.
Not gonna work on mobs that use its chain stun more often.
Doesn't work given how fast the stun is reapplied. You'd need to be able to activate both abilities at the same time, using a macro or such. Everything else is countered once you have the slightest amount of lag.

Sometimes your screwed and get nailed right after you stunbreak, it stinks but lifes not fair. Yes I get stuck like you discribed on ocasion but if you actualy watch the animations of the mobs you can often time it to get out of there and then kite kite kite if you think they are that nasty.

You're playing a different game then. While it's not instant all of the time, quite often it's ticking on a speed which will end up near-instant death. If the ability itself doesn't, one of the conditions it applies for sure will.

Cute story, not very accurate and more than mildly insulting but whatever. As I said not every AOE is deadly, in fact a fair few are little more than anoyance as long as you dont stand in them too long. There are deadly ones out there. The priest of balthazar fight in Orr has one that will kill you in 2-3 ticks but those are the minority not the rule. you can learn from experience which ones you can aford to soak for a bit if you find they didnt do much damage.

At this point you're better of just playing ranged. You won't cripple your damage by regularly switching betwene melee/ranged.

Melee can do significantly more damage than range even in short bursts. Considering this is not wow where you have to stand still to cast there is no reason you can not wait till your crossing the threashold between range/melee before weapon swaping. if done right you dont have any significant lost DPS time.

It's nice that you're playing guardian. But if you require a huge amount of boons/abilities to remove conditions (or traits doing similar), every class which lacks either of those is at a huge disadvantage, even more so if the high-utility classes contribute an equal amount to damage (or damage itself is irrelevant, due to the lack of enrage timers or such).

I'm quite confident that once you played a thief, you'll realize just how "broken" melee in this game can be, or how much of an advantage ranged weapons are.
Now if it weren't for the fact that steal (or rather a trait for it) is one of the only abilities which applies boons to your group, and obviously it will put you in melee range - now the lack of a threat system and a medium-armor melee class usually do not end up well. It's ok for slow-swing time mobs, because you can time around that. Fast swing timer, just hope that the mob doesn't decide to turn around instantly after you stole an ability.

Level 80 warrior here, lvl 2 guardian pack mule and name reserver. I'm sure you know the old saying about assumptions. I use a trait that causes my war banners to put regeneration on anybody they are affecting. Healing signet's passive effect is close to the power of regeneration on its own. I'd have to log in to check but I believe mango pie is the food that I was useing that privides a third tick of healing every second thats a bit weaker than the other 2 I just listed. I also sacrifice alot of damage potential in the short term for what is in effect and out last build. I also dont have alot of condition removal, I normaly run with exactly 1 removal that doubles as my stun break. I dont run with the auto balanced stance trait. I dont even bring balanced stance most of the time. My bar is healing signet, For great justice, banner of strength, Shake it off, and signet of rage. 7 and 0 are almost purely to boost my damage back up 9 is my condition remover/stunbreak and the banner is just genral utility along with something to feed my trait choice.

Now your right. I dont know much about thieves other than they are anoying as hell to fight 1v1 in pvp. I frankly did not find them intresting when I took it for a test spin in the beta and never looked back. I dont know if perhaps http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Assassin%27s_Reward offers as much healing as what I'm geting because of my trait although its 1 tier lower than where I had to go for mine. I dont know if http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Malice offers as much healing as my healing signet. I could therory craft all night long and still not be able to tell you how to play your class. I can tell you however that when I tried a more glass cannon build I had to play much much more conservitively and avoid damage like the plauge. If your not willing to pick up traits that are defensive in nature or take utilitys that will help you through sticky situations all I can say is either suck it up and L2p your choice better or find other ways to adapt to the situation.

[Fencers]

At this point you're better of just playing ranged. You won't cripple your damage by regularly switching betwene melee/ranged.

Just something worth pointing out here: depending on build one can gain MORE DPS by weapon swapping. Some of the most devastating tactics available to melee players are from weapon swaps. Might on swap, crit on swap, life steal on swap, etc.

Weapon swapping can be a great benefit. All comes down to understanding the mechanics of combat and the skill to pull it off.

[Cranberries]

as a thief ... (level 59)

pvp = melee
pve = ranged

really melee rapes all over range in pvp, its not even funny

[obdigore]

My Warrior feels easily twice as strong as my Ele (both mid 50's). Both in PvE and PvP. I also find dodging and moving more fun than standing and casting on things like the Nageling giant, Shatterer, and The Giant in the cave east of the woods that leads to the centaur area whos name I forget right now.

[drigoly]

i'm playing a guarding myself, lvl 80, don't tell me that you haven't discovered judges intervention, the greatsword pull, the hammers immobilize,greatsword jump and the 3834894 other things we have to catch up with mobs/players yet :/