Does being melee put you at a disadvantage?

[Froggi]

I'm not as far along as the rest of you are but I'm not having too many problems with my guardian being locked down by normal mobs. Only level 18 but I can solo 2-3 mobs my level with proper CD usage and weapon swapping etc without a great deal of difficulty. For the record, right now my favorite weapons are 2H sword and a 1H sword/torch combo.

Yeah I died charging straight into a champion two levels above me this afternoon before help arrived, but I mostly wanted to see what would happen. Needless to say, it wasn't pretty XD

[Deleted]

One thing I wish they'd implement is the ability to not see friendly spell animations. All I want to see is what the boss is doing, not 50 fire/frost/rock/explosive/smoky swirls all over the boss and his immediate area making it impossible to see him charging up his attack. This issue is only exasperated by the small viewing area. In wow I can scroll out to a far enough distance to get a view of the whole boss. In this I'm stuck looking at a mess of colours and effects at the boss' feet.

It makes it hard to know when he's telegraphing an attack and I usually end up backing off and using my pistol instead.

The good thing about being melee (Thief at least) is that I can take on entire packs - like 6 or 7 - mobs at once and because I've been forced to get good at strafing and dodging I take very little damage at all. I haven't noticed mobs pathing away from me when I engage though; usually they cluster up right nice for a double death blossom followed up with a trap.

[Arkenaw]

It absolutely puts you at a disadvantage. There are a ton of bosses in dungeons that attack with no warning that is instagib for melee, but fairly easy to dodge as ranged. If I hadn't leveled to 80 already I would be playing my mesmer instead.

[Deleted]

It's been said already here, but yeah, you should always have melee and range wpn equipped. There are only few bosses/mobs that require pure ranged approach though, 90% of the time you are better off with MELEE weapon: many times more higher damage ( for example 2h sword on warrior gives around 3,8 times more damage than rifle ).

[vtaas]

Nope. Kinda annoying in PvE when there's a bunch of people attacking a mob, since it's harder to get the last hit in.

[Allanon the Mystic]

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?

She said 'ideally', you don't actually have to, it's a smart thing to do because it helps a lot, but in no way is it mandatory.

I, for one, use SBow + P/P on my thief with slow/snare utilities so I can always keep my distance, I hardly ever have the need to get into melee range, and most mobs won't be able to ever get to me.

[Merendel]

Nope. Kinda annoying in PvE when there's a bunch of people attacking a mob, since it's harder to get the last hit in.

um are you perhaps in the wrong sub forum? There are not really any mechanics in GW2 where last hit matters outside of maybe 1 pvp map where the team that gets the killing blow on an NPC gets the buff. PVE if you did a meaningful amount of damage you get credit last hit or not.

[Ynna]

In open world PvE and PvP: No
In Dungeons: Yeah, it kinda does.

[Naughts Skyway]

I feel like these suggestions will be laughed at later on. Every class has a means to avoid damage in melee range, and when those abilities are on CD, the game is designed around knowing when to back off and let others take the damage or kite.

Thieves avoid damage via blind.
Necro avoids damage via blind & DS.
Warrior can take a lot of hits.
Guardian has many options to build for damage avoidance.
Ranger gets to trade off hits with the pet.
These are the only classes I have experience with, but I am sure it applies to others. I have an 80 Necro who leveled up primarily D/D with the Staff as a 2ndary. I am a beast of a tank and I deal so much single target and aoe damage on top of it. I've played through the dungeons and we're working on explorable modes now and I still stand by all of this. Range simply requires less knowledge of how to avoid damage, yes, but that doesn't put melee at a disadvantage. You might want to use range while you're learning some of the explorable mode encounters, but after that, melee range grants you so much more damage (and more fun) than the guys hiding behind you. :P

Lastly, I'm not trying to say that melee is better for everything, that's an ignorant comment - but I think forums in general tend to blow this issue way out of proportion. Melee is fun and rewarding when you do it right, coming from someone who finds melee a snore in other games.

[Allanon the Mystic]

um are you perhaps in the wrong sub forum? There are not really any mechanics in GW2 where last hit matters outside of maybe 1 pvp map where the team that gets the killing blow on an NPC gets the buff. PVE if you did a meaningful amount of damage you get credit last hit or not.

Think he means just getting a hit in general, because no games in the subforums have a 'last hit' combat/exp/loot system. Sometimes it can be really annoying because you need to do a certain amount of damage in order to get credit for a kill.

[Deleted]

In open world PvE and PvP: No
In Dungeons: NO

I've fixed it for you .

Blind (this is the most OP debuff in this game, it makes explo modes a joke)
Stability buff (same here, you can't be a sane person and go on a Dungeon run with out this buff in your group)
Weakness (suddenly mobs and bosses don't one shot you if you fail at dodge and positioning)
Protection (this combined with a weakness on a boss makes everything an EZ-mode)

So yeah.. if you know how to use yours and your team8s boons, you can melee all you want.

There are also Aegis, Vigor and Retaliation but those require specific professions.

[Gripple]

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.

I love it when players mistake terrible programming for artificial intelligence.

[Kelesti]

I've fixed it for you .

Blind (this is the most OP debuff in this game, it makes explo modes a joke)

I wish. Defiance seems to have taken its place, reducing both Blind nad Weakness' usefulness in PvE through the floor.

---------- Post added 2012-09-04 at 01:07 AM ----------

I love it when players mistake terrible programming for artificial intelligence.

I wouldn't call it "terrible" programming. Reducing the cleave damage going out, why would "good" programming intend for them to stand ontop of one another?

[Deleted]

I wish. Defiance seems to have taken its place, reducing both Blind nad Weakness' usefulness in PvE through the floor.

You still have gazilion of both personal and party wide defensive cooldowns >_>. Srsly...

[Merendel]

Think he means just getting a hit in general, because no games in the subforums have a 'last hit' combat/exp/loot system. Sometimes it can be really annoying because you need to do a certain amount of damage in order to get credit for a kill.

There were a few talents in wow that had effects that proc'd off killing blows for a while that were fairly worthless in a 25man raid because of the rarity of geting the killing blow. I doubt any of them are still around now with their new pre expansion patch but that was the only option I could think of. considering the brevity of his post there is not much context to infer a typo or a misspeak to change Last hit > A hit.

That and we get folks in here all the time thinking they are replying to a wow thread because it poped up on the front page list.

[Kelesti]

You still have gazilion of both personal and party wide defensive cooldowns >_>. Srsly...

Oh, I have no doubt of that at all. Really, I like it. Playing as a dual-sword Mesmer is quite responsive, and feels very much in control of what's going on. I just think the tuning on Blind/Weakness is a bit off in Defiant. Why even have them applicable at all, given latency and I doubt any of us are actually playing on the servers themselves.

[Cakka]

It absolutely puts you at a disadvantage. There are a ton of bosses in dungeons that attack with no warning that is instagib for melee, but fairly easy to dodge as ranged. If I hadn't leveled to 80 already I would be playing my mesmer instead.

Yep, there is absolutely zero question that you will have a LOT easier time by using ranged weapons in dungeons and in any harder content. For soloing it doesn't make a huge difference though it's still easier to kill stronger mobs by kiting them.

[Deleted]

I love playing melee, and I've basically always done it in games where you had to choose from being ranged or melee, and I do find that in most cases it puts you at a disadvantage. In dynamic-event boss fights especially, it can be pretty hard to see what animations the boss is doing because of all the spell-effects from casters, but most of the time it's noticeable enough to dodge in time. It's also very hard in exploreable dungeons since a lot of stuff will just downright 2-3 shot you, but I have to to terms with it in most cases, and I don't think anything should be done, maybe increase toughness across all melee builds by something like 10%, that said I don't mind if they don't do it, but I can see why there seems to be a lot more ranged characters in general.

[Dundebuns]

I recently learnt about Frenzy, so yeah, in PvP, it's melee all the way. Don't even have a ranged weapon equipped any more, unless we're sieging/being sieged in WvW.

[Deleted]

It absolutely puts you at a disadvantage. There are a ton of bosses in dungeons that attack with no warning that is instagib for melee, but fairly easy to dodge as ranged. If I hadn't leveled to 80 already I would be playing my mesmer instead.

I agree with this, Im playing a warrior and to be honest iv not enjoyed the dungeons as melee I just seem to get insta 1 shot with no warning, I feel powerless. Questing is fine and PvP seems ok I just hate the dungeons as melee.