Melee Vs Ranged PvP

[ComplexNuber]

It's worth noting that the bubble can't move, and it's elite (ie. Recharge time is a problem). If the bubble comes up people can just roll away and fight someone else or wait. Where it's really going to shine is capturing points and being used mid battle around an ally who is just about to die. Using it on offence might not work against smarter opponents.

[JohnnyRaygun]

I think you're setting your parameters too narrow in this instance. You're assuming you'd be the only one going in melee style. There are benefits in going in as melee. I think a lot of people will enjoy melee in massive groups. Also, terrain will play a big part. If you're fighting on leveled playing ground, ranged players in a mob will most likely not be able to do anything with their ranged attacks due to their friends being in the way and blocking attacks. This will cause a mob to split up.

They split up, and you with your fellow melee'rs will break up the ranks and add in confusion. Now specific targets can be singled out.

I think WvWvW combat and perhaps other pvp styles involving bigger groups, will play out much like real medieval battles did back then (albeit less organized). You're going to have 2+ mobs zerging at each other. Granted with the bigger mobs, unless they're an actual guild, you'll probably not see much coordination, (try typing a bunch of info to a big select group especially during combat).

However, if you want to mob up to attack an objective, it would pay off beforehand to have some general planning. "Hey need a group of 40+ players to attack this keep." *time goes by, group is together*

"Ok, I need ranged units and engineers to stay in the back. Rangers, use barrage en masse in the enemy group for good ranged AoE damage. Engineers pop gun turrets/healing turrets to help defend the rear flank and use flamethrowers to keep them at a distance if we get compromised. Guardians pop shields and try to channel the group into our melee warriors. Elementalists/Necros, pop AoE damage and heals ito the fight and we will try our best to break their ranks. Mesmers place a portal for a small party of control equip guys and port them behind their ranks. Control keep ranged and casters busy and we'll sandwich them in." blah blah blah

Could probably make it a smaller order of attack. Just an example of what could possibly go down during these events. Melee will be an important role in combat.

[Centaur]

Hi Johnny, welcome to these forums... and nice intro! For smaller pvp groups and for guilds I think we will definitely see that kind of cooperation. For large scale WvW this is going to be considerably harder to achieve, as it's basically just organized chaos with players popping in and out and doing whatever they feel like... even if someone stands up as the 'director' of the attack, I doubt everyone will listen to him...

[tarisma]

Well also class combos may become important in PvP. Imagine the implications of the use of something like the smoke screen + stomp combo, invis for every1 if a small part of melie gets into a larger group of range them all pop their biggest attacks at once it would cause massive chaos.

Also will range attacks be effective at melee range?

[Centaur]

Also will range attacks be effective at melee range?

Most of them, yes, they will do the same amount of damage, but you may want to use the kind of ranged attacks that keep your enemies at bay to avoid receiving too much damage yourself. And targeting at melee range may be a bit harder for some of those skills...

[Mantose]

I get the feeling ranged attacks do less damage than melee, overall. The only ranged attacking class I would be overly worried about is the ranger since they have an attack that does more damage the further away you are to them.

I think the other thing that makes you want to close the distance is most pvp is objective based. You need to physically be in certain places in order to capture areas and gain points on the scoreboard. Certainly in structered it will be that way. WVWVW, I guess will be as well but maybe not as focused on area objectives. There really hasnt been a ton of info wvwvw yet.

No one will be a dedicated healer in any way shape or form in gw2. Even if you wnted to be one, the way the game is set up, you couldnt because you would be gimping yourself. So unlike other games you will not be dependant on a heal from another player in order to survive combat. You have your own self heal that will do thousands of points of healing. While some professions have the ability to heal others its not even close to being any good. Most healing you can do for others is like heal over time abilities ... that do less than 100 points a tick.

I did notice the engineers have an ability to drop a supply crate that looks like it has good healing packs in it for others .... but that is an elite ability that can not be used very often.

Basically the only healing you can recieve from others will take the edge off... it wont be enough to sustain you.

Anyway, because you are self reliant and not dependant on others to heal you, I think this will give people courage to charge rather than hang back and thinking ... will the one healer on my team heal me or not? Like they do in other games.

[MysticPhantom]

imo Anets been making this one for a long time so i think they shudv figured it out, also if u see the pvp videos, u can see a lot of confusion in there, that is perfect for a melee hero to slip past unnoticed, example the thief slips ryt in ko's a coupla sqishies and high tails it out, i agree that a warrior is high profile, which is why i think warriors fit to distract while others kills off range heros like the mage, ranger etc, all in all after seeing the videos i really dont think this is goin to be a problem, also another thing i noticed in the videos is there is after a crowd start smashing each other it dwindles into a 1v1 match most of the time, of course its going to be different once guilds and such things form. But still i see a lotta advantages to being melee than ranged...

[tarisma]

I will be choosing a range character purely based on my experiences in wow where I play a meelie character in arena and battlegrounds, usually it is fine and pretty balanced however in my 3's team we have a massive problem against a 3 caster combo. Usually they slow/stun the 2 dps both meele, and then burst our healer into oblivion and gg. The slow is 2 powerful I mean if I can't get there I can't hit them. Whereas I can be pummelled into oblivion.

[Annastriana]

As it has been stated previously in this page, the OP seems to be underestimating the power of coordinated melee assaults in a Raid vs Raid PvP scenario. If you are the only one charging in the middle of the enemy group and running out of range from your group so no one can heal you or protect you, then yes it sucks to be a melee and you're gonna die, you're also gonna deserve it because it's a dumb move.
The secret is to have a team coordinated enough to assault together and perform combat maneuvers properly with the support of everyone, then the melee shine with their hard-to-dodge, in-your-face atacks, disturbing the enemy formation, causing despair and taking down those slower to react or adapt. Melee and Ranged are different and serve different purposes in a fight, what makes them better or not depends on the situation you put them in. If you're good enough to create a situation where the melee will be useful, then they will be. Meanwhile, when the fight is on the "ranged only" aspect and a melee manouver is not viable, the melee classes have tools to assist.

I don't see a problem.

[Lord Death]

Truly IMO guild wars 1 was the most balanced game on terms of pvp vie ever played, so I think they will do a nice job of balancing melée vs ranged through survivability and through damage and equal mobility. Also remember each class will be capable of being a hybrid so they can simply be both, but certain melée profs may be surprisingly good for range enemies.