Melee Vs Ranged PvP

[Vadslav]

Hello everyone,
This is my first post, and im here to find some more ppl to discuss with about something thats being intriguing me..,

Why ever go melee on PvP (and even PvE) on Guildwars 2??

By now 4 classes seems to be efective on melee combat; Warrior, Thief, Guardian and Ranger(?). But all of them are efective on ranged combat as well.. In addition there is no healer-especific class and most of the cross-class-combos I've seen includes some form of ranged attack...all of this leads me to think about this situation:

You are on a PvP combat, or RvR whatever.. your team is facing the oposing team, 20 ppl on each side trading spells and shots.. why would you ever charge to the middle of their army to hit an elementalist and die in 2 seconds ( because their entire team will focus you since you are an easy target, and you will have no healer to keep you up) if you can stay protected in the middle of your on army shooting some arrows on their team??, arrows wich would go by some wall of fire and get bonus damage, or interact with any other friendly skill?

I dont see melee being good at any other situation besides killing someone isolated from the main group.. something that will leave you isolated too and opened to be ganked...

Im planning on rolling a thief -ok the game is far from relase but im excited-, but im worried about this, i like dual guns and unload, but i want to slice people too..

Thanks for reading this

[Centaur]

Hello Vadslav, welcome to these forums!

You do raise an interesting question, and I agree that it often appears smarter to stay at range and do damage from there.
So why get up close then? Well, I'm not really a pvp-er, so others will surely be able to explain some things better, but I'll give it a try anyway. First, even though there are no dedicated healers, there are quite a few possibilities to avoid or reduce damage on you, or to do for example area-based healing for your allies. For example a warrior at close range is able to avoid a lot of damage with his shield, or simply by dodging out of the way. Second, that warrior already has a higher armor rating - which could be increased even further with buffs, so that he should be able to maintain for quite a while even against a small group. I'm not sure how he would do in the middle of a large group that all attack him... it might be smarter for you and your team to try and divide that group first, before jumping in their midst for the kill.
Also, melee attackers often have skills to prevent their attackers from being able to attack at all, such as knockdowns (see for example the warrior's Stomp video). Even if you're in the middle of a group, if you keep pressure up, keep moving around (no static tanks as in GW1), and keep preventing the opponent from attacking themselves, you should be able to do a lot of damage, and probably even take a few of them out, before they are able to take you out.
Support from the rest of your team will still be crucial for your survival, though, so buffs, boons and heals are still necessary, even though they won't come from one single dedicated healer.
For a thief, I don't think taking on a group at melee range would be smart, but while that group is distracted by your team mates (for example by that melee warrior) and they are not paying attention to you, you could sneak up on one of them, rush in for the kill, then dash out again, before the group even has the chance to focus all their attacks on you.

Also, it's a lot easier to avoid damage from ranged attacks all coming from one direction (just let your guardian set up a protective wall, or something like that), than it is to avoid damage from a melee attacker moving around in the middle of your own group.

But with that said, yes I do have the impression that up-close melee will be more difficult and will require a lot more strategy and movement than what we're used to in GW1 or other mmo's. I doubt that it will be as easy to just stand in their middle and take out the entire opposing team 1 by 1, while your team's support characters keep you alive.

[Psyklone]

I'm with you both.
Cent raises some valid points, but I still worry. Namely "Will it be enough?" to avoid the 2 walls of players shooting each other scenario.

What really concerns me is that I LOVE the look of the guardian class, but their ranged abilities are severly lacking compared to some other classes. Even the warrior has a decent selection of ranged skills. The Guardian however has the shock rifle from UT, a support wall, a spammable cone attack, create an area of dmg/buffs, and another support skill. Hardly a ranged tour de force.

[Vadslav]

Thanks Cent and Psyko for your thoughts.

I will have to do something now that i know everyone will hate me for.. but the only MMO expirience i have is WOW so here we go...

In the begining people play mostly for pure fun, on Roleplay servers that would last longer but, at some time, after some years, the majority of players becomes min/maxers..

What i mean is; I see warriors going with 2 handers in the middle of a wall of players and killing things for fun and then dying in 1 second for some months after game release.. but then there would appear all that sort of wiki sites telling you the best gear for this and the best traits for that, and they would tell "warriors go bow or go home", most warriors would do that and melee is gone..

In addition, i agree with Centaur that you may be able to do something on melee if you can avoid attacks and use knockdowns, but when i played my warrior on WOW (sorry again) i would be rooted / stunned / disarmed as soon as i charged, i should then use my trinket or be dispelled by a healer so i could continue my slaughter.

But again, in gw2 there will be no healer.. altough i keep being told that there will be a sense of community, everyone will support everyone and all that, i dont feel confident that i can charge and i will last time enought to kill something before dying because an engineer will stop everything and heal me

Well, anyway i hope arenanet thinks about this and find a way to not let this happen, it looks like this game will be great and im really looking foward to it.

[Risugami]

You see, if you're skilled enough, you can dodge EVERY attack since there is no stay and hit in GW2 but hit while running. So at the moment you have only to worry about spells since we don't now if they work like arrows, which you can dodge, or if they are instantly on you after casting is done.
So I think, the bow-users are at the real disadvantage, not the melee fighters.

And even if the melees would be at disadvantage, I wouldn't stop playing a melee, because it's to much fun to smash everything with a hammer.

[Vadslav]

I don't think you would be able to dodge every attack, even if you dont stop rolling around, and you spend energy dodging so you will dodge for some seconds and die.. In addition.. when you dodge you move around, and will probably get too far from your target to hit it with a melee attack.

About projectiles x spells, it seems to me you will be able to dodge spells that has an animation showing the spell coming in your direction, other then that i dont know..

[Ruse]

I don't think you would be able to dodge every attack, even if you dont stop rolling around, and you spend energy dodging so you will dodge for some seconds and die.. In addition.. when you dodge you move around, and will probably get too far from your target to hit it with a melee attack.

About projectiles x spells, it seems to me you will be able to dodge spells that has an animation showing the spell coming in your direction, other then that i dont know..

AoE spells are ground-targeted. So if you're not in the area when it lands, you're not going to get hit

They've also said that projectiles (arrows, for example) will "hit" the first thing they would pass through; so even if you're aiming at that squishy ele, if a warrior is body-blocking then you're not going to hit them.

Having played AoC, I honestly don't see it being an issue. In large-scale battles (sieges, in particular) you need melee leading the charge to protect your softer ranged targets. And don't forget, a warrior with a shield is going to be a lot harder to kill than a warrior with a bow. And I'm sure ranger melee skill set, for instance, will also give you upped survivability or higher damage as a tradeoff for no range.

[Psyklone]

Ruse raises a good point.
In WAR tanks were a must in RvR. You couldnt run through other character models, so a literal shield wall was very effective. And melee characters took a lot of hate off the squishies.

But again, I think the main problem here there are no healers. You gotta look after your own ass. So I won't be running into melee anytime soon.

[Winterbay]

Ruse raises a good point.
In WAR tanks were a must in RvR. You couldnt run through other character models, so a literal shield wall was very effective. And melee characters took a lot of hate off the squishies.

But again, I think the main problem here there are no healers. You gotta look after your own ass. So I won't be running into melee anytime soon.

OTOH everyone has a healing skill and there are people with more dedicated healing abilities around meaning that you can probably stand you own pretty well (unless grouped upon) and if you have someone in your viscinity that cna heal that will certainly help as well.

That said I'm not going to go rushing into PvP in any form so I'm fine

[Venn]

You see, if you're skilled enough, you can dodge EVERY attack since there is no stay and hit in GW2 but hit while running. So at the moment you have only to worry about spells since we don't now if they work like arrows, which you can dodge, or if they are instantly on you after casting is done.
So I think, the bow-users are at the real disadvantage, not the melee fighters.

And even if the melees would be at disadvantage, I wouldn't stop playing a melee, because it's to much fun to smash everything with a hammer.

I agree, Risu. No matter what I'm going to have a squishy ninja type on the front line doing the stabby-stab.