Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Corpsesarefun wrote:

Fafnir wrote:I find that's the case with melee combat in general. Especially in crowded situations, or against large monsters where you're too close to see the tells for each attack.

As far as risk/reward is concerned for melee and ranged weaponry, at least for PvE (all I did in the beta) I think something needs to be changed.

The point is that every class has ranged options and should take them, hence the two weapon sets.

Classes that don't have two weapon sets have ranged options built into all their weapon skill bars.

The problem is that ranged combat is always the better option. In my entire time playing the beta, never once did I ever feel that I would be in a better position by engaging in melee combat for any reason.

Sure, you can say that melee combat will yield more damage, but since you have to spend most of your time evading and repositioning, any increase in damage is lost to the constant barrage you can throw out with ranged combat, while also being at much less risk and presenting many more options for utility and support.

As it is now, melee combat in PvE is a poor choice. Yes, you can do well with melee combat, I did so on several occasions, but ranged is always better.

Ranged is easier I'll give you that.

However Melee has a huge amount of options for closing the gap, higher damage, more powerful conditions and higher attack speed. Melee seems underpowered because 99% of players are newbs at the moment.

Did you read my post? It doesn't matter if melee does more spike damage, since you spend more time repositioning and evading attacks. With that in mind, any extra damage at this point in time is lost to the consistency of ranged weaponry.
Furthermore, even though you have more options for conditions and control at close range, you don't really need that at long range anyway, since the need for clutch defense is quite low.
Additionally, some melee weapons may have gap closers, but ranged weapons don't need them, which opens up another skill slot.
Skilled melee fighters can succeed, but ranged fighters do it much more easily and are generally more consistently effective.

Keep in mind, this is concerning PvE. PvP is likely a very different beast. But as it is now, there's no reason to pick melee combat for PvE.

It doesn't matter whether melee combat can be successful or not if ranged combat completely trivializes it.

Unless the enemy has deflect projectiles. That stuff hurts.

Fafnir wrote:The problem is that ranged combat is always the better option. In my entire time playing the beta, never once did I ever feel that I would be in a better position by engaging in melee combat for any reason.

I did. My greatsword, even with equivalent stats, was almost invariably a better damage dealer than my rifle, due to its numerous multi-hit attacks, especially its first attack which was a three hit combo, and its second attack, which was a nasty seven hit combo with a big finisher that hit EVERY enemy in front of it.

Warrior greatsword > all warrior ranged weapons in terms of number of attacks per minute.

Fafnir wrote:Did you read my post? It doesn't matter if melee does more spike damage, since you spend more time repositioning and evading attacks. With that in mind, any extra damage at this point in time is lost to the consistency of ranged weaponry.
Furthermore, even though you have more options for conditions and control at close range, you don't really need that at long range anyway, since the need for clutch defense is quite low.
Additionally, some melee weapons may have gap closers, but ranged weapons don't need them, which opens up another skill slot.
Skilled melee fighters can succeed, but ranged fighters do it much more easily and are generally more consistently effective.

Keep in mind, this is concerning PvE. PvP is likely a very different beast. But as it is now, there's no reason to pick melee combat for PvE.

It doesn't matter whether melee combat can be successful or not if ranged combat completely trivializes it.

I did read your post but I don't seem to understand what you mean. Ranged combat requires less skill to use well but isn't as effective whereas melee is harder to use but more effective in that it does far more damage so it will kill mobs quicker. In high skill level melee and ranged play (as seen in PvP) are pretty much equal so, while melee may not be the best for new players, it follows that in higher level PvE (where the mobs ARE harder in terms of pure numbers, AI and mechanics) the two will also be equal.

It's not like ranged weapons make you immune to damage, ranged mobs still shoot you (and require you to move/dodge) and melee mobs will charge at you (requiring you to move out of the way).

And I wouldn't give up my necro's dagger for her staff, if I had to make the choice. Having life draining ability is just too important to her build, and the staff doesn't have it while the daggers do.

Same iwth the daggerdagger build on my elementalist-- I played with the staff for a bit and it was certainl fun, but the daggers just have generally better skills.

Aaaand on my warrior, same thing. The rifle is great, especially with its main attack doing bleeding and having an adrenaline attack which does absolutely obscene damage... but the greatsword actually still does MORE damage, and to a greater number of enemies (the rifle's attacks all hit one enemies, while the greatsword's attacks hit groups). If I tried to use the rifle to take on the groups I can kill with my greatsword, I'd die every time. But the rifle is great for going against bosses, especially if I can make sure a different player is taking the boss' aggro-- a high amount of single target damage combined with some decent debuffs that really just can't be beat... IF you can keep the aggro off of you.

Well with my guardian I pretty much just played greatsword for the most part and while I had an ability to teleport to my target, a leap to target ability and an ability to pull people to me, for the most part people could still escape me pretty easy just by dodging away and running for the hills.

It kinda seemed like you could get 1 or 2 hits in using those abilities to reach your target but that was all.

In that sense you could say ranged is more effective because its easier to get close enough to your target to do dmg.

It is easier to get in range, but you also do less damage and have less effective skills.

My necro's daggers do more damage than her staff, easily, and she has a life drain and a power t hat does more damage the more debuffs are on the enemy (think about that for a moment, she's a necromancer-- a debuff based class), which is an AoE to boot.

Surely the damage isnt that much less for ranged though? I didnt really play much ranged.

Xeriapt wrote:Surely the damage isnt that much less for ranged though? I didnt really play much ranged.

It really is.

Think about it this way-- my rifle and greatsword, both high damage two-handed weapons did about the same amount of damage (the rifle slightly more than the greatsword if you include the bleeding effect on every shot of the primary attack, but the greatsword hits more often). The greatsword, however, did it to three or four enemies at the same time (or more, actually, basically every enemy in melee range). So the actual damage output was greater.

Same with my elementalist-- the lightning whip (primary dagger, air attunement, first skill) did twice as much damage as the primary attack on the staff and attacked faster to boot, although the staff's effect did bounce (chain lightning).

What if your only attacking one target though?

I found that wading into melee in pvp tended to see you dead pretty quick unless you go in for a few strikes then back off.

Whereas the people in the backlines firing projectiles and spells tended to be able to do so without much fear of retaliation.

Perhaps this is due to people not understanding the need to flank your enemies and such though.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
One thing I was annoyed about though is that when I used the sceptre's ranged attacks to hit people on walls, my attacks just hit the base of the wall not the people...


It didnt really work how I thought it would lol.

I love how terrain is actually solid against ranged attacks; sure, it makes it harder for me to hit some things with fireballs, but the realism it adds is crucial to avoid it becoming just another WoW fight, where spells fly through trees and walls.

Now height actually means something, and having the higher ground gives you an actual advantage instead of being able to see someone's topknot and launching a lightning bolt through a whole cliff to get them.

As for dual daggers vs staff, I haven't tried the daggers yet but i'm having too much fun with my staff at the moment.

Xeriapt wrote:What if your only attacking one target though?

Rifle to start off, greatsword to finish, usually.

The rifle pulls the target at me with volley or its two debuffs, and then the greatsword finishes them off.

Against a single enemy there's not actually that much reason to use rifle the entire way-- as I said, the greatsword hits faster tahn the rifle while doing roughly equivalent damage. Greatsword applies vulnerability while rifle applies bleeding, with the third greatsword hit in each combo doing more damage.


edit: just checked the numbers.

Rifle's Bleeding Shot does 213 damage and -270 damage over time from bleeding assuming max level and no traits. In the same amount of time, the greatsword does [373 damage, -30 defense], [373 damage, -30 defense], and [480 damage].

Rifle's Volley does 376*5 damage, to a total of 1880, while Greatsword's Hundred Blades does 2576 damage including the final strike.

So actually the greatsword does better damage, especially including the loss of damage reduction due to decreased defense (two stacks of -30, stacks duration IIRC). Both of them benefit from condition duration increases, although rifle benefits more from condition damage increases (unless they also effect the Vulnerability condition). Greatsword's Bladetrail does the same debuff as Aimed Shot, but hits more targets and does about three times more damage per hit, although Aimed Shot has a longer duration on its Cripple effect (five seconds) than Bladetrail (four seconds) as well as half the recharge time of Bladetrail (ten as opposed to twenty seconds) and has twice the range. Brutal Shot's vulnerability lasts longer, but it also cannot be constantly applied like the Greatsword basic slash attack without some condition length increasing traits.

Then there's the remaining skills. Rifle has a surprisingly powerful skill in Rifle Butt which has a very strong knockback and does a surprising amount of damage-- I've seen it knock down champion monsters. And Greatsword has two movement skills, Whirlwind attack (does a standard hit to every enemy on its path) and Charge (does a weak hit, charging to melee range on the target). Surprisingly, Charge has about the same range as most rifle skills (1200), while Whirlwind attack has just over three times melee range (450), so combined with Bladetrail, keeping a greatsword user out of range is quite difficult even if you have them crippled.

They're both quite powerful weapons mind you. The rifle, however, is not simply better than the greatsword despite the range advantage. Though ti is useful in keeping out of range of attacks, I'll grant you that.

Corpsesarefun wrote:

I did read your post but I don't seem to understand what you mean. Ranged combat requires less skill to use well but isn't as effective whereas melee is harder to use but more effective in that it does far more damage so it will kill mobs quicker.

Ranged combat requires less skill to be effective, less effort to be successful, poses less risks thanks to being outside of most enemy attack ranges while also having a better view of their more telegraphed attacks, and grants you more consistent damage as you do not have to dance around them all day in between attacks. Yes, if you put the two standing still beside one another and had them slug it out, the melee fighter would finish a mob faster, but as we know for melee, that's almost never the case against most mobs, who will kill you very quickly if you try to stand still. In most cases, especially against champion mobs, you will have to move in and out of combat, meaning that there will be periods where you can't attack. This is not the case for ranged weaponry, since you will almost always be in range once you've engaged.

Additionally, ranged weaponry tends to have an even easier time dodging enemy attacks, since while many melee weapons have their higher damage skills requiring you to stand still and get pummeled, ranged weaponry allows you to move and fire their similar skills (such as the Thief's Unload) at the same time.

In high skill level melee and ranged play (as seen in PvP) are pretty much equal so,

As I've previously stated, I'm not talking about PvP.

while melee may not be the best for new players, it follows that in higher level PvE (where the mobs ARE harder in terms of pure numbers, AI and mechanics) the two will also be equal.

Actually, the AI of higher level monsters is largely the same as lower levels. They may have more skills at their disposal, and be overall stronger, but the basic mechanic of their design is the same: target the closest enemy player. PvP and PvE are two completely different monsters, and the way melee skills are handled in PvP is completely different to how they are in PvE.

It's not like ranged weapons make you immune to damage, ranged mobs still shoot you (and require you to move/dodge) and melee mobs will charge at you (requiring you to move out of the way).

There's a reason why the developers have responded specifically on this issue (https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Melee-vs-Ranged/131324), and on the subject that mobs clearly don't have enough ranged options or ranged counters, and the fact that their AI needs to be tweaked. Yes, many enemies do have ranged options, but not enough to threaten ranged characters enough compared to melee.

Melissia wrote:
Aaaand on my warrior, same thing. The rifle is great, especially with its main attack doing bleeding and having an adrenaline attack which does absolutely obscene damage... but the greatsword actually still does MORE damage, and to a greater number of enemies (the rifle's attacks all hit one enemies, while the greatsword's attacks hit groups). If I tried to use the rifle to take on the groups I can kill with my greatsword, I'd die every time. But the rifle is great for going against bosses, especially if I can make sure a different player is taking the boss' aggro-- a high amount of single target damage combined with some decent debuffs that really just can't be beat... IF you can keep the aggro off of you.

If you want to attack groups, why are you using the rifle? Longbow handles groups far better than rifles.

THe longbow does FAR less damage to both single targwets AND to groups than the greatsword.

The greatsword's primary area attack does 2576 damage-- in PvP this is actually a fairly weak attack because it's so avoidable, but in PvE, this is a staggeringly powerful attack. The longbow's equivalent attack does 858, and most of it is DoT. The greatsword's next area attack does 373. The longbow's next area attack does 112 and blinds the enemies it hits. The greatsword's last area attack does 469 damage and slows all enemies it hits. The longbow's last area attack does 690 damage that is pure DoT.

The greatsword is several times better against crowds than the longbow is.

Yes, but you can sit back at range, not have to take time to close in, not have to take time to reposition, and fire off your decently powerful AoEs while taking no damage.

You're also discounting the fact that the Greatsword's most damaging ability requires you to be rooted in place and easy prey for anything, which tends to be a bad idea when most attacks will kill you in one or two hits.

Hell, the thief's shortbow allows it to hit multiple enemies with its autoattack, making it clearly superior against mobs of enemies for any reason in comparison to its melee options. It's (2) ability, if timed properly, can also do great damage, even against single targets.

I'm not saying that melee damage is less than ranged damage. I'm saying that it's not worth the risk involved.

Fafnir wrote:Yes, but you can sit back at range, not have to take time to close in

Take time? Two of the greatsword's attacks launch you at your target. One of them has GREATER range than the longbow (1200 range as opposed to the longbow's 900). A warrior with a greatsword will be in combat attacking before the warrior with the longbow can fire his first shot. The other one can launch you through enemies, being used to not only attack but also to dodge while still attacking.

Okay, so your success with the greatsword shows that all melee weapons and loadouts in the game are just fine and require no tuning.

The Warrior has plenty of effective gap closer, not every other class does, and those that they do have may not be as effective. Additionally, on a 20 second cooldown, if you have to back away to dodge a big attack inbetween, tough luck, you're walking back in. Gap closers are not the only issue.

Fafnir wrote:Okay, so your success with the greatsword shows that all melee weapons and loadouts in the game are just fine and require no tuning.

No, I'm just saying that melee weapons don't all suck.

I also present to you dagger/dagger necromancers and dagger/dagger elementalists-- both of which are melee weapons despite being spellcasters.

Dagger/dagger elementalists do astounding amounts of damage and have good methods to close rank with the enemy, and even methods to get AWAY from the enemy as well (one in particular has you evade backwards, gives you Swiftness, and knocks down enemies in front of you).

Dagger/dagger necromancers also do more damage than, say, staff necromancers, and have better powers for keeping themselves alive (namely, their life steal attacks and various debuffs). Of course, for necros, switching weapon sets is almost always the best strategy because it relies on lots of debuffs-- and the staff has some useful powers that can be placed on the ground and still prove useful after you switch back to your other weapons.


For the classes I played, I definitely used either the melee weapons alone, or a mixture of melee and ranged as the situation demanded it. But I never found that melee weapons were underpowered in PvE.

Keep in mind that the dagger skills for necromancer and elementalist tend to focus on medium range, with some skills built around close range.

As for myself, having played Thief and Mesmer primarily (with some light experimentation with warrior), I almost always found myself opting to use ranged weaponry over melee.

Although I tried to use a dagger/dagger or sword/pistol on my thief from time to time, pistol/pistol or pistol/dagger would always end up being more reliable single target weapons for any purpose, and shortbow always had a place on my loadout because it was just better than any melee option while also being effective at crowd control at range. The only time I recall close range with the thief being effective was when I was fighting some enemies in a closed in area of an inn.

As for the mesmer, wielding the sword/offhand combo was horrendously bad when weapons like the staff and greatsword were available, offering much more damage and control, with a premium on safety that even the invulnerability granted by Blurred Frenzy could not give. By time I moved on from my Mesmer to try other classes, I was fighting groups of mobs 6 levels higher than me with ease at range, while combat with enemies at the same level as myself with melee was more of an exercise in frustration.

I was fighting groups of mobs the same level difference as my greatsword using warrior.

If those weapons are weak, though, then I'd agree they need balancing.

Necromancer and elementalist attacks with daggers are primarily melee though, not really medium range. For example, the dagger/dagger air set (the one I've been using) is essentially a pure melee set (the three primary dagger attacks are all melee range, and the two secondary dagger attacks, one is a charge-into-melee attack and the other one is an evade), and three of hte dagger/dagger necro skills are melee attacks with only two medium ranged attacks (the secondary dagger's attacks, deathly swarm and enfeebling blood).

All necromancer dagger skills except for the autoattack equal or exceed 300 units, at which point I would consider them medium range.

Also, although I haven't tried WvW, I've heard that Guardians are particularly useless for that mode specifically because of their lack of long range options. It wouldn't surprise me, especially since Anet commented on addressing the Guardian's issue of range.

As for the issue itself, here's what I think:

1)Anet intends for players to take a load out of two weapon sets, and switch them to fit the situation accordingly. Although every weapon set is its own unique and complete skillset, there are some challenges that require you to use different ones for optimal results.

2)As it stands right now, even in cases where some melee weapons aren't terrible options in comparison to their ranged counterparts, every class requires some form of ranged option in their load out to be effective. In other words, players suffer for melee/melee load outs, but ranged/ranged load outs suffer no real penalties, and are able to approach all situations with a degree of competence.

3)The way the AI and mobs in the game are developed goes on to emphasize this disparity further. Mob AI has them target the closest enemy, meaning ranged fighters have very little to worry about for the most part. Although some mobs do have tools to act as gap closers and engaging tools, there are not enough out there, and they are not potent enough to threaten ranged fighters, especially with the way mob targetting works. Additionally, many mobs, especially larger ones, are lacking suitable 'tells' needed to inform players of when an attack is coming. This is especially notable at close range against larger mobs, where the player may be too close in to actually see what the mob is doing. Additionally, there are a large amount of self-targetting AoEs present on large mobs/champions that make the standard strafing melee method of avoiding enemy attacks invalid, meaning players in melee have to time their dodges around attacks that are difficult or impossible to see. The presence of lag/input delay, and the long recharge time on dodging only exacerbates the issue.

4)Melee combat, from my personal experience, tends to be somewhat boring at times, since much of the focus tends to be on simply circle strafing while activating skills in the most effective order to achieve the highest damage.

5)In terms of comparison of risk/reward, many melee weapons simply lack suitable rewards for the risk involved when in comparison to melee. Keep in mind, the melee fighter will have to spend some time moving in and out of range to avoid attacks that the ranged fighter generally doesn't. In most cases, this means that melee fighter will end up losing out on damage output over time, as ranged fighters can kite while dealing damage at the same time, even while retreating. Furthermore, melee fighters will die more often, since they are always targets of priority and also within range of a mobs' most dangerous attacks. You deal no damage when you're dead.

6)As for fixing this disparity, I think one of the first things that should be done is fixing mob target priority as well as giving them tools to fight ranged combatants more effectively. Pulls, gap closers, and ranged attacks should be more potent on enemy mobs, and target priority should work to maximize these abilities. Furthermore, mobs should target enemies who either pose the most threat, or who are enabling allies the most, rather than just the person closest to them.
In other words, mobs should make an effort to attack players supporting and healing, in addition to those who are doing melee damage. With this change, not only would some of the focus on melee fighters be removed, but a new dynamic involving using the control ability (stuns, disables, etc) of melee weaponry to prevent and protect would lead to more dynamic combat as a whole (as opposed to simply circle strafing a mob until it dies), similar to that of GW1.

Fafnir wrote:All necromancer dagger skills except for the autoattack equal or exceed 300 units, at which point I would consider them medium range.

300 units is not medium range, it's point blank.

Fafnir wrote:As it stands right now, even in cases where some melee weapons aren't terrible options in comparison to their ranged counterparts, every class requires some form of ranged option in their load out to be effective.

I don't agree with this. I chose rifle/greatsword because it's cool mostly, but greatswrord alone would be perfectly fine for warrior by itself.

Fafnir wrote:Additionally, many mobs, especially larger ones, are lacking suitable 'tells' needed to inform players of when an attack is coming.

This, however, I agree with. Champions Online and DC Universe Online both did this far better than GW2.

IIRC, Champions Online had a series of flashing symbols for this. An explosion box for AoE, an exclamation point for a single target attack, and a green cloud for an incoming control attack (hold, stun, etc), which melee players used to allow them to stun and block. Mind you, Champions had similar melee vs ranged problems at times.

Fafnir wrote:Melee combat, from my personal experience, tends to be somewhat boring at times, since much of the focus tends to be on simply circle strafing while activating skills in the most effective order to achieve the highest damage.

... as opposed to standing still and doing the same thing with ranged weapons?

Melissia wrote:

Fafnir wrote:All necromancer dagger skills except for the autoattack equal or exceed 300 units, at which point I would consider them medium range.

300 units is not medium range, it's point blank.

130 is point blank (range of most melee attacks). 300 is on the shorter end, but it's not quite point blank.

Fafnir wrote:As it stands right now, even in cases where some melee weapons aren't terrible options in comparison to their ranged counterparts, every class requires some form of ranged option in their load out to be effective.

I don't agree with this. I chose rifle/greatsword because it's cool mostly, but greatswrord alone would be perfectly fine for warrior by itself.

How far in did you get, and was what race? I know some situations where melee combat was just a terrible idea even from my short experience with the beta. There have even been some people talking about some areas where melee combat is just impossible (Ascalonian Catacombs, IIRC).

Fafnir wrote:Melee combat, from my personal experience, tends to be somewhat boring at times, since much of the focus tends to be on simply circle strafing while activating skills in the most effective order to achieve the highest damage.

... as opposed to standing still and doing the same thing with ranged weapons?

Both suck. Circle strafing requires one more button press than standing still.

Fafnir wrote:How far in did you get, and was what race? I know some situations where melee combat was just a terrible idea even from my short experience with the beta. There have even been some people talking about some areas where melee combat is just impossible (Ascalonian Catacombs, IIRC)

My human warrior and norn elementalist got to level ten, and my human necromancer got to level fifteen, IIRC.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
By the way, I recommend trying out Champions Online (it has a free to play mode, less customization but the same gameplay) to see what I mean about its dodge and block mechanics.

The ranged vs melee disparity certainly exists and needs tweaking but I found it manageable at most times. However, when you get to some sort of boss and there's like 30 other people with you, melee is essentially useless.

The boss is scaled to astronomical lvls OHKO'ing players with ease. Normally, such attacks have tells (usually) but when there's 30 people blasting spells and covering the enemy in a veil of particle effects; figuring out where you are and what the boss is doing is unrealistic. Furthermore, even if you could make melee work, why would you? Using ranged on a boss takes a fraction of the effort and will yield the same if not greater damage output.

I do want to mention that I still found being a Warrior hella fun, the Greatsword especially. I played Sword+Horn (seems better for PvP with all the movement control) and a Greatsword, which dominated in PvE after I got the hang of it, but Warrior-Greatsword seems to be the exception to the rule in melee. With its ridiculous damage output the reward is actually worth the risk.

I also had a Thief with Shortbow/Sword+Dagger I managed to find uses for both but in general the Shortbow seemed better, except when the bouncing arrows pulled dudes unintentionally. I also played a Staff/Scepter+Sword Mesmer but only for a little. I also want to add that forcing people to take a ranged weapon in addition to their melee weapon would be a poor way to balance.

Also not to derail the current conversation but while we're on the topic of balance did anyone else find Ranger to be kinda OP?

No, never played ranger. But tons of people did (this being Norns I played in most, it was hardly surprising).

Guild War2
Starwars
Tera Online
Diablo III



Only time for 1, suggestions?

You're in the GW2 thread, what do you think?

I'd say either GW2 or Diablo. Both look good.