80 replies to this topic

[Bismarck]

I could definitely see a small force of thieves constantly harassing anyone who operates stationary siege equipment such as trebuchets, arrow carts, and catapults. Stealth, multiple forms of teleport (shadowsteps), and the ability to do incredibly massive damage striking against someone's back (which you would hit if they were operating siege equipment).

Get enough thieves and you could even quickly destroy the siege equipment. You could certainly do hit and runs on the build sites before they're up.

[Nefarian]

Yeah exactly, I can see warriors doing a similar thing with a lot of up front damage capabilities, just charge the back of the siege line, take out a few operators and machines, and then high tail it out.

[Stroh]

The main problem with the melee classes would mainly be when they are in a position with no option other then to fight from a ranged position, such as when on top of the keep walls defending the front door. However Guild Wars 2 can rectify this problem by allowing the use of multiple weapon sets with little to no penalty. So while a warrior may not do as much ranged damage as an elementalist, they can still use a longbow and reign burning arrows onto their enemies.


Other then that, most of the melee classes have gap-closing abilities and leaps that will allow the distance between players to be travelled in shorter periods of time. Combined with hard CC's like knockdowns, and the kiting ability of ranged classes begins to get balanced out.

[xandar]

People keep talking about "melee classes" but there are none in this game. Every profession appears to have some very viable mid/long-range options. The warrior, for example, is capable of very good damage at range.

Now, I'm not saying they'll ever force you to go ranged, but you may sometimes benefit from switching to a weapon better suited for the current situation. Since everyone has that option I don't see it being too much of a problem.

Anyway, I agree with some of the previous posters that melee weapons will likely be more effective for small raids than large sieges.

[Neclord]

I came to the conclusion that will be very situational Maybe melee weapons will do more damage to castle doors, and when you enter in the building you don't want to be ranged because you will have nowhere to run.

Well in open fields someone has to charge to the close range, and there is a lot of abilities to rush to your enemy in a few secs, just look at elementalist dagger skill "Ride the Lightning" you can travel a far distance very quickly and the lots of speed boosts + your long ranged teamates inflicting cripples.

[SnakeEvoke]

In TB's recent dungeon video, he said that as a thief, it would be better to go ranged, because there was no reason for him to stand in the heat of the battle and take the hits. So I think it depends on what for build you got to play melee in a succesful way.

[Regenerated]

I know a lot of people have been complaining about the over-abundance of particle effects that currently exists, so I think it'll be easier to melee after they make some tweaks. Maybe they could make you recover more endurance the closer you are to enemies, so you'll have more dodge chances.

Like Xandar said, there aren't really strictly melee or ranged classes anymore. As a ranger you can do quite well with a greatsword and warriors could do just as well with rifle or longbow. I think us as players just need to realize that no only did they do away with the 'trinity', but they also did away with being strictly melee or ranged. That's not to say you can't focus on being stronger one way or the other, but if would be a bad idea to only equip yourself with ranged or melee options because you're just limiting yourself.

With that said, I think we're overestimating the amount of time being spent inside keeps during a siege. Most videos have shown that players don't do enough damage to warrant directly attacking the door, so we'll be relying on golems and various siege weapons to take down walls and doors. To me this means that even if there is a large mob at the door or near-by, unless they have siege machines they won't pose much of a threat. If the keep has been properly outfitted with defenses you should be able to burn them down with motors or hot oil. When they start to roll out the siege weapons, I would assume that the bulk of the fighting would be taking place as the siege machines, so depending on the range of the weapons the defenders would have to come out of the keep. Either scenario melee has lots of opportunities to get directly in the fray, and I really think they did a great job to assure that.

I might be making an oversight so please correct me if there is anything wrong.

[alexrobomind]

Many of the more melee-oriented weapons (and attunements etc.) seem to include some defensive mechanics (resistances, blocking, different forms of cc, ...). Additionally, many support-oriented utility skills provide highly effective area-control effects (ranging from movement control over projectile reflection to condition / boon control). As the range of those (understandably) seems to be somewhat below the standard artillery build's, one would have to get into the "death zone" around a hostile zerg anyway in order to fire those off.

As the crucial factor in combating a huge player group seems to be to cut it into smaller pieces and try to separate them from each other via various AoE control spells, it seems rather important to have some people running those support-style utility builds in order to provide that factor. So if you have to get into enemy firing range anyway, why not go at least part melee and use that set to cause some havoc while people try to shoot you down?

Will you be downed? Probably. Will you be defeated? Possibly. Is it worth the effort to open a breach that allows your fellow comrades to rush in (possibly mostly unattended as people focus you down) while leaving the enemies split up and vulnerable? You bet it is.

Of course now you need some teammates who actually put that advantage to some good use.

[Neclord]

In TB's recent dungeon video, he said that as a thief, it would be better to go ranged, because there was no reason for him to stand in the heat of the battle and take the hits. So I think it depends on what for build you got to play melee in a succesful way.

even being melee you can just stay out of the center killing ppl from the edges and I think thief even though can range he will do better with daggers and such, you can also chase annoying rangers with shadow step or scropion wire + lots of cripples and stun they have.

yeah I will rage when a thief shadow step me out of nowhere and start to spike damage on me remember they don't have cooldown on their abilities.

[Amsterdam]

There will definitely be a learning curve for some people. I anticipate a lot of posts on message boards for the first couple of weeks about how you can't wade into a huge sea of people and melee with success, or that you can't stand in front of a warrior or guardian as a thief and go blow for blow with them. But people will eventually catch on to the intricacies of the game and it will sort itself out. Plus, it's not like anyone is stuck in a melee role. Warrior with a longbow is no joke.

[Jacobin]

Meele will have to be very careful about over extending. I have no doubt they can get in and do damage well, but getting out alive will be tough when there is no one to really heal them.

I have a feeling most meele will want to pack a ranged weapon with some sort of cc.

[Naido]

I'm not worried because 100vs100 castle sieges won't be the only activities in WvWvW. In smaller squad situations, melee will not have to worry as much about AoE spam or wading through 30 opponents.

[Ablestron]

I think it'll be mostly situational, the only times I could see melee being effective would be to take pressure off of others, such as when you invade a keep; having a good number of melee run into the fray first to get into the enemies faces would help give others the time they need to run in and prepare aoe ect. just a thought

[Zaff]

I think it'll be mostly situational, the only times I could see melee being effective would be to take pressure off of others, such as when you invade a keep; having a good number of melee run into the fray first to get into the enemies faces would help give others the time they need to run in and prepare aoe ect. just a thought

So, what you are saying is we should send all the melee people in as "cannon fodder" so the ranged players can blast the enemy away! I love the idea of cannon fodder. Maybe just send in a wall of warriors, who then die and use their vengeful spirit downed ability (i dont know what its actually called) to stand back up and fight again! That would definitely give plenty of time to the others to do their thing, and if the enemy ignores the melee group to stay focused on the others, they will end up getting ate alive.

Oh just thought of it, could also send some guardians in the mix for bubbles and the instant full life heal. You could actually make a pretty scary melee rush group with guardians if that full AoE heal stays the same.

[Deft]

Except in order to use that heal they can't move at all. Doesn't sound like rushing to me...

[Zaff]

Except in order to use that heal they can't move at all. Doesn't sound like rushing to me...

They can still pop it, use the spell, and turn the elite off. They have the option to end it early if movement is needed. If we are assuming everyone is constantly on the run in this scenario (and I don't mean just moving about while fighting, but actually running from/pursuing others)... then why send in any damage group? Wouldn't you send in a CC group to stop them from running/pursuing? And if its to stop the enemy from pursuing by holding them back while others escape, then the guardian will have ample opportunity to use it. The only time the guardian would not be able to effectively use it is if your team was the pursuers. However, if you get blocked by the enemies that stop to hold you back.. the guardian could use it fine.

I also think of the terms rush group and a group that pursues the enemy to be different. I would not just put ALL melee in a pursuit group either.

[Deft]

The heal seems like it would be even better if used in a keep defense. Say you have 5 really tanky shield warriors holding a gate, and they get endure pain at 25% health, then after that wears off the guardian can just heal them to full again. The 5 second knockdown from tome of wrath seems like it could be useful for rushing, because it's a disruption and would allow the melee to burst down at least a few people while they're on the ground. I just wonder how long it will actually take to cast the elite and then the other skills, because by that time the enemy may have already moved out of range. It's the same when trying to heal. Your allies have to get within range of it, and at the same time the enemy can run away and cc your allies while you heal them. So it might be somewhat useful, but I don't think it will be OP like some people are saying. It really depend on the range, cast times, and if the spell is instant or not.

On the gw2 wiki it says the heal has a range of 1200, but a radius of 100. That makes me think it's ground targeted in a small area. A well placed elementalist tornado could completely destroy any chances of healing the melee guys.

[Zaff]

The heal seems like it would be even better if used in a keep defense. Say you have 5 really tanky shield warriors holding a gate, and they get endure pain at 25% health, then after that wears off the guardian can just heal them to full again. The 5 second knockdown from tome of wrath seems like it could be useful for rushing, because it's a disruption and would allow the melee to burst down at least a few people while they're on the ground. I just wonder how long it will actually take to cast the elite and then the other skills, because by that time the enemy may have already moved out of range. It's the same when trying to heal. Your allies have to get within range of it, and at the same time the enemy can run away and cc your allies while you heal them. So it might be somewhat useful, but I don't think it will be OP like some people are saying. It really depend on the range, cast times, and if the spell is instant or not.

On the gw2 wiki it says the heal has a range of 1200, but a radius of 100. That makes me think it's ground targeted in a small area. A well placed elementalist tornado could completely destroy any chances of healing the melee guys.

The video of the heal shows it having the 1200 range I am pretty sure, as the graphic appears to be a good distance. That radius sounds more like the circle the guardian stands in? No idea. I also didn't mean to seem like it was OP or anything, but a good tool. I rewatched the video of it in the guardian forums, and it does have a cast time on the heal as well but no ground targeting. Anyways.. I guess in my mind I too pictured a keep defense more so than open world combat with it.. I just did not get that across in either of my posts. I was basically thinking of, at a keep defense a group of warriors rushes out at the enemy (aka why I used the term rush group) group while the guardian does their best to keep them alive.

I also was not aware of the abilities of the other guardian tome, the knock down could be more useful if it has a good range on it. But I thought no CC, except for some exceptions, lasts longer than 2-3 secs in PvP? Not that it is a big difference but would knock 2-3 secs off the knockdown skill. The knockdown skill has no cast time like the heal does, too.

[Neclord]

Is going to be awesome a squad of thieves shadow steeping to make enemy lines a mess, I'm dieing to see all crazy strategies, melee do have potential

[okuRaku]

Jon Peters made a post on the beta forums that is related to this that I found very nice to read. In particular, coming from an FPS background myself, I really enjoyed this quote:

Effective Melee requires skills that translate over from FPS games which are notoriously harder on casual players.

Here's the full text:

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:

• 
  Melee does more damage. Melee damage is simply higher than ranged damage across the board.
• 
  Melee has more control. With a few intentional exception Melee has a lot more control than ranged.

What Melee needs:

• 
  defensive tools on more weapons, particularly on lower armor professions.
• 
  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
Follow up:
Hey everyone. As a general rule I try to not post twice in one thread because it starts sucking me in and I need to spend my time sleeping/working on GW2. However, so many great replies here I wanted to just explain why you might not get responses to them, but a lot of great valid points. It is nice to have a community that understands the problems as well and just know our goals are the same.
Some small notes.

• 
  Champions hit too hard.
• 
  Melee attacks are longer range and wider arc than you might suspect to compensate for latency.
• 
  Camera distance might not change, but we have considered moving the position a bit to help with visibility.

Thanks for your support again and see you next beta weekend.
Jon