PvP dominated by ranged classes ?

[Lucky_]

I really dont see anything in the skillset that makes a ranger better with a long bow than a warrior. Not gonna post the 2H sword skills but it works the same way in reverse with the ranger having good skills as well.

Ranger can trait for 1500 range. Warrior cannot.

This makes ranger pretty much uber class in WvW where bombarding enemy at range is more important then anything else, but doesn't necessarily give significant advantage in 5v5.

[Kuntantee]

Is this the Denial phase? You know, Arena net has uhm like, allready a working and balanced MMO out there? Yay! And its Called Guild Wars!
Yeah, all of sudden the 2 in guild wars 2 makes sense no?

Yeah, but that's called Guild Wars indeed. Not Guild Wars 2. From game design point of view, if they didn't copy and paste all spells and their coefficients/formulas etc. your argument fails because they're two separate game. ANet may be experienced with balancing a game but this doesn't means their game will be balanced before it's out. To balance a game, you need numerical analysis with big experiment pools. If they re same(by "same" I meant your basis of argument which is everything spells etc. is same otherwise how can you prove the game is balanced while giving example of another game? =>), this game will be dead less then 1 year. No1 plays rehashed shit with better graphics.

Its somewhat funny how people step into a Guildwars game, assume it has to be TOTALY like wow, and make completly wrong assumptions...

Noone said that, I just said game can not be balanced and it's not.

and btw guild wars doesnt have "rotations"

no SHIT, you don't say!

I'm really looking forward to ANet's balanced game but at the same time people are talking about the game is too much homogenized. We will see!

[DrakeWurrum]

This puts average player playing melee in worse position then average player playing ranged. There is no reason for that.

Precisely the problem.

[Deleted]

Question;

(and this is coming from a player with virtually no knowledge of the GW2 gameplay and thus, no actual knowledge of how things are going to work)

If any "class" will be as proficient with a ranged weapon as with a melee weapon - and knowing how PvP generally works in mmos - would melee weapons ever even be used in PvP?

I know it's a simplified question, but some of you are saying that all professions do virtually all things equally well. The immediate question in my head is - why even bother with melee, as it sounds like such a hassle, especially when you're fighting ranged specialists, or at least those that prefer ranged combat.

[Kuntantee]

Question;

(and this is coming from a player with virtually no knowledge of the GW2 gameplay and thus, no actual knowledge of how things are going to work)

If any "class" will be as proficient with a ranged weapon as with a melee weapon - and knowing how PvP generally works in mmos - would melee weapons ever even be used in PvP?

I know it's a simplified question, but some of you are saying that all professions do virtually all things equally well. The immediate question in my head is - why even bother with melee, as it sounds like such a hassle, especially when you're fighting ranged specialists, or at least those that prefer ranged combat.

because I always prefer melee over ranged. I'll be using my thief with dual daggers no matter what and my other weapon will depend

[Larynx]

Question;

(and this is coming from a player with virtually no knowledge of the GW2 gameplay and thus, no actual knowledge of how things are going to work)

If any "class" will be as proficient with a ranged weapon as with a melee weapon - and knowing how PvP generally works in mmos - would melee weapons ever even be used in PvP?

I know it's a simplified question, but some of you are saying that all professions do virtually all things equally well. The immediate question in my head is - why even bother with melee, as it sounds like such a hassle, especially when you're fighting ranged specialists, or at least those that prefer ranged combat.

The playstyle.

Melee, at least in theory, will have more damage, more control, more mobility, and more defense than ranged to compensate. Some people prefer that.

This is what someone from ArenaNet had to say on this subject

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

[Window]

I can not see the distinct advantage of ranged class considering mellee do overall more damage have gap closes and the option to switch to a long range weapon on the off chance they do get kited
I had no trouble playing a duel wield daggers thief in pvp and guardians were steam rollng battlegrounds all weekend

[rezoacken]

Melee hits pretty hard and somewhat AoE. Not sure where you think range and melee have the same dps ?

Just pick a bow when you are kited and switch to melee when you are in melee...

AND DONT CLICK YOUR SKILL/KEYBOARD TURN

[Lucky_]

Melee hits pretty hard and somewhat AoE. Not sure where you think range and melee have the same dps ?

Just pick a bow when you are kited and switch to melee when you are in melee...

AND DONT CLICK YOUR SKILL/KEYBOARD TURN

Melee has atrocious DPS in both PvP and PvE due to severe uptime problems.

It does however have a very potent damage burst in PvP, which is largely irrelevant in PvE due to huge health pools and some bosses being simply unreachable in PvE like shadow behemoth's face which is the only thing that conceivably needs burst in PvE that we're seen during BWE. In fact most of those "omg [class] is overpowered, I died instantly" claims you see sometimes are typically about certain warrior and thief melee builds setting up and unloading a burst that can conceivably kill people from full health in seconds.

That said, in most cases melee is still avoidable, and "just switch to ranged" is quite a bad option when you're and carry support skills for melee combat and get torn up in ranged combat against someone who is specializing in it and avoids your melee burst setups (which are generally avoidable, melee burst warrior can't do squat if you just dodge his bolas for example).

In short, melee does have its place in 5v5, but it's definitely far more situational and limited in its capability then ranged and generally specializes around quick bursts on immobilized and stunned opponents.

[DrakeWurrum]

Melee has atrocious DPS in both PvP and PvE due to severe uptime problems.

I dunno. I found that I did crazy damage, but the moment I got focused, I just exploded unless I played my cards right. That means the damage itself is fine, but that it's all too easy for us to die... and all too hard for ranged to die since ranged don't experience the same threat.

[Repefe]

As a ranged player: I will nuke you from range, you close on me I swap to my melee weapon set and deal with you up close with all the benefits of melee weapons.
As a melee player: I don't want to use ranged weapons ... gets insta gibbed while overextending.

Playing fighter >>> playing melee/ranged fighter.

This puts average player playing melee in worse position then average player playing ranged. There is no reason for that.

In GW2 you have this historic battles where you get premade characters, you don't need to think how exactly your build will look like you can just pick it up, read skills, practice a bit, and play. Don't you think its targeting casual players?
Well, more accessible to wider audience will be parts of game (pvp, pve), more happy players, more money from copies/item shop.
So i would not assume developer "pvp is not for casuals" mindset.

I really doesn't want to say that pvp in WoW is harder then GW1 or other way around because it can lead to a lot of flaming, i just say that i played pvp in GW1 and WoW and its not as clear as you say.

If you want to play just melee ... you need to have good defenses to be somewhat universally viable. It's just the melee glass cannons that have higher skill cap. As for GW2 PvP we will see how things are after players spend a few months practicing PvP in the game.

[DrakeWurrum]

Don't forget, every class has a minimum of two ranged weapons and can easily play full-on ranged as well. But if an enemy gets into melee range, you have plenty of evasive and controlling moves to keep them out of melee range.

[Deleted]

Gotcha. That does make a lot of sense.

[drakul]

Even though the ranger and warrior can both use bows the rangers skills and talents are going to built around bows and range why would a thief build around melee weapons?

You guys dont get what he is saying the ranger has bow setup slows snares exc the warrior might have some but not as good..

[DrakeWurrum]

Why did you necro this POS thread from 3+ months ago? ><

[Deleted]

Lock this thread before it comes back

[Nurvus]

I'm not here to argue whether ranged is better than melee or not.

I will, however, say that Melee needs to be competitive against Ranged and vice-versa. Period.

If I want to play my character as melee, I should have the means to be effective, competitive and successful at it if equipped, built and played right.

PvP isn't Ranged versus Ranged, it's Player versus Player.
If Ranged has an uncounterable advantage against Melee, something needs to change.

In my opinion, the quality and balance of GW2 at this stage is amazing and seems to put all MMORPG releases so far to shame.
We will see soon enough if this is true.

Meanwhile I chuckle at those that made the big development decisions in SWTOR.

[terrahero]

In PvP melee-playstyles are very strong and competitive to ranged playstyles. Its rather the PvE where ranged is somewhat better because its easier to avoid a PvE-mob with ranged then as melee. But its hardly easier avoiding a (good) melee-fighter in PvP then a ranged.

[Edge-]

This got discussed to death last time it was active. Since the game isn't out yet, I'm gonna close this down. Once the game's out, if people want to re-visit this discussion, they're welcome to do so.