68 replies to this topic

[ph2001]

I guess most people have seen it by now, dungeons are either "kite or die", making Warriors go Rifle, Thiefs go Shortbow, etc...

ANet needs to do several things to make dungeons for melee possible.
THE main problem is: Normal attacks hit too damn hard.

1. Decrease melee mob damage by around 30% across the board - then add a special attack to each and every melee mob that has a, say, 0.5-0.8 second wind-up and deals hefty damage (example: 120% of a current hit).
You know, sort of like the centaur charge or many other special attacks found in the wilderness, just with a way shorter wind-up and a good damage bonus. Noticeable but not too much reaction time.
2. Make the mobs execute these attacks at a rate higher than dodge refills, so not everything can possibly be dodged and support skills are still necessary, but let's say a good 50-60% of these attacks can be dodged IF you're up to your dodging game.


I mean: What use is dodging if every single regular melee attack hits so hard and has an animation that's damn near undodgeable anyways?

What do you think?




EDIT because many people misunderstand this topic:
I do not want the dungeons to be designed in a way that you can just stand there and melee! You're going to have to dodge and react a lot. Challenge, you know? But the current way things are designed, especially auto-attacks and "instakill projectiles", makes meleeing completely INEFFECTIVE. Melee gets a small damage bonus to "compensate for not being able to DPS 100% of the time", but this bonus is WAY offset by having to stay out of the fight 60% of the time currently. There is NO reason NOT to go ranged. Especially since the dodge mechanic actually gives way more advantage to RANGED, because you can see, react to and dodge incoming instakill-projectiles! Not to mention kite.

Edited by ph2001, 16 September 2012 - 04:57 AM.

[Vorch]

Just finished AC story mode with a Hammer/Rifle Warrior. I had Healing Signet (regen), Kick, Signet of stamina (condition removal), Dolyak Signet (reduces incoming damage), and my Battle Standard.

I'm currently traited for Defense and Strength (5 in Strength, 10 in defense at the time of AC). Highest level armor at the time of completion was level 23.

I used Backbreaker (Knockdown), Kick (Knockback), Staggering blow (knockback), and earthshaker (stun) to keep the foes from doing much. I really only switched to Rifle for Adlbern at the end due to his heavy melee range attacks that I could not see for the life of me.

If you are going to go melee as a Warrior or Guardian, you NEED to make sure you have the defense to go toe-to-toe with crazy stuff.  Regeneration helps ALOT. If you are going to go melee with a thief or Ranger, I recommend also focusing on defense, but also using your extra methods of evading to your advantage.

For my warrior and my guardian, I don't feel a need for melee to be changed (yet). Ofc, I'm level 31 on my warrior (25 on my guardian) and you may have a different experience.

[Stormsoul]

Vorch, on 09 September 2012 - 04:15 AM, said:

Just finished AC story mode with a Hammer/Rifle Warrior. I had Healing Signet (regen), Kick, Signet of stamina (condition removal), Dolyak Signet (reduces incoming damage), and my Battle Standard.

I'm currently traited for Defense and Strength (5 in Strength, 10 in defense at the time of AC). Highest level armor at the time of completion was level 23.

I used Backbreaker (Knockdown), Kick (Knockback), Staggering blow (knockback), and earthshaker (stun) to keep the foes from doing much. I really only switched to Rifle for Adlbern at the end due to his heavy melee range attacks that I could not see for the life of me.

If you are going to go melee as a Warrior or Guardian, you NEED to make sure you have the defense to go toe-to-toe with crazy stuff.  Regeneration helps ALOT. If you are going to go melee with a thief or Ranger, I recommend also focusing on defense, but also using your extra methods of evading to your advantage.

For my warrior and my guardian, I don't feel a need for melee to be changed (yet). Ofc, I'm level 31 on my warrior (25 on my guardian) and you may have a different experience.

Story mode dungeons are much easier than explorable modes -- they're not really intended to be very challenging, so it's a lot easier to melee in them.

[ph2001]

Vorch, on 09 September 2012 - 04:15 AM, said:

If you are going to go melee with a thief or Ranger, I recommend also focusing on defense, but also using your extra methods of evading to your advantage

Melee thief is suicide, as soon as you get aggro you're pretty much dead in 2-4 hits. Warrs and guardians can't take that much more either. And def spec only helps a bit and you sacrifice a ton of damage for it, so the mobs end up living longer in exchange.

Also, story can be hard but it's nothing compared to explorable.

I just think we need more stuff that's actually dodgeable, and in a sense, "worth dodging". If you have to dodge every single melee attack (which is of course impossible), it feels neither rewarding to dodge (but you're forced to anyways) nor right.

[Griautis]

Get a proper control specced charachter in the team. In a dungeon mobs must be CCed almost at all times (either hard CC or soft cc like weakness ,which usually lowers their dps by 50%). If you don't have someone to control and someoen to support,you are failing. Not the dungeon

[ph2001]

Griautis, on 09 September 2012 - 04:28 AM, said:

Get a proper control specced charachter in the team. In a dungeon mobs must be CCed almost at all times (either hard CC or soft cc like weakness ,which usually lowers their dps by 50%). If you don't have someone to control and someoen to support,you are failing. Not the dungeon

Control specced? Most characters have one or two hard-CCs on a LONG cooldown.

Also, if you need a "controller", a "supporter" and DPS, then ANet lied to us, then there IS a trinity after all.

[Devlin1991]

On trash mobs, weakness (25% damage reduction) + protection ( 33% damage mitigation) combined with regeneration + splash heals can keep you almost full health at all times. This is true for almost all melee packs. The biggest danger in explorables are stuns combined with telegraphed attacks, the hardest pack in any instance I've ran into so far was in the Murssat route of Arah Exporable. 3 Mobs which have a channeled ranged stun, and 2 mobs which have a telegraphed one-hit-kill(2 on my tanky warrior) ranged attack. The ranged attack is not reflectable or blindable, and it splash aoe's so if you block it the aoe still hits all your nearby party members.The stun is a 1s daze which is re-applied every 0.5s or so and does non-ignoreable damage, sunbreaks are useless since you get auto re-stunned almost instantly, stability or interrupting the channeling mob are the only survivial options. There are some other packs which "combo" rather nastily with each other, I really don't see pug groups doing a lot of the explorables due to these brutal trash packs at least until a possible nerf months down the line once the QQ from the masses really ramps up.

2 melee with strong CC and protective buffs combined with more dps oriented ranged players is a nice balance between dps and survival, just don't expect to be able to take a glass cannon axe/axe warrior into an explorable and not be killed often.

[Eternal Arcadia]

Ive found a good group to do explorable dungeon runs with, and I can assure you that its not. We are a Mesmer, Necro, Guardian, Warrior, and Thief. I'm the mesmer, and I only play support. Weve been running through every single dungeon without any problems and hardly any deaths.

I think people just need to get smarter, and start forming better teams. Melee does fine, it doesnt need a change, people are actually just learning how to play still.

[dirkaderpa]

melee in this game is only for sPvP, it sucks in everything else, no reason to take it over ranged options unless you seriously lack AoE.

[Samhax]

I don't understand those complaining about "it's too hard as melee" and that stuff. It's absolute fine imo - sure it's not as easy as ranged, but you deal more damage as equalization. As I said in another Thread, I've done 2 of the 4 arah runs (norn, asura) and died about... 5-7 times the whole dungeon. Ofc I got a rifle as 2nd weapon, but only for playing safe a few secs till my healthskill is up. You should also use combo fields as often as possible (ranger aoe health + banner blast for example)

[Chronos12360]

Eternal Arcadia, on 09 September 2012 - 04:37 PM, said:

Ive found a good group to do explorable dungeon runs with, and I can assure you that its not. We are a Mesmer, Necro, Guardian, Warrior, and Thief. I'm the mesmer, and I only play support. Weve been running through every single dungeon without any problems and hardly any deaths.

I think people just need to get smarter, and start forming better teams. Melee does fine, it doesnt need a change, people are actually just learning how to play still.

Off topic: I'm not 80 quite yet (have tomorrow off so I'll be there soon hehe) but from what I can tell brains over brawn in this game for sure.  I play mesmer and I'm curious if you'd be willing too share your build for a support mesmer?  I've run through multiple setups on the way upto endgame except a support build but I'm very interested in one.

Now on topic I would like to comment that currently melee is more risky but tbh it is that way in every other game and very true in RL for the most part.  Also I'd like to add that (correct me if I'm wrong) but melee have the bulk of aoe combo finishers? Thieves, warriors, and guardians throwing out extra dmg and support through good group dynamics is a HUGE plus for playing melee imo.

[Grimsy]

I've only played Thief and Ranger in melee distance in a dungeon but they weren't as bad as people make melee out to be. What with all the evades, stealths, blinds and jumps.

However, I do agree that the visual queue's sometimes aren't good enough for you to dodge (This goes for across the whole game in my opinion, not just dungeons). And I do like your idea of a special attack that is noticeable.

[Skjuludde]

ph2001, on 09 September 2012 - 04:05 PM, said:

Control specced? Most characters have one or two hard-CCs on a LONG cooldown.

Also, if you need a "controller", a "supporter" and DPS, then ANet lied to us, then there IS a trinity after all.

No they didn't. They've mentioned that setup a number of times.
I remember them saying removing the holy trinity, Not saying "There won't be any trinity whatsoever"
Besides pretty much any class can fulfill each of the roles mentioned, something that's substantially harder to create with healer, tank and dps.

[Omedon]

Chronos12360, on 09 September 2012 - 04:53 PM, said:

Now on topic I would like to comment that currently melee is more risky but tbh it is that way in every other game and very true in RL for the most part.

This must be why the army pulled funding for the "punch them to death" unit....

Skjuludde, on 09 September 2012 - 05:25 PM, said:

Besides pretty much any class can fulfill each of the roles mentioned,

Exactly, and THIS is the "death to the trinity" model, not the idea that you never have to co-ordinate "you fulfil this role", you still have to co-ordinate, you are just a weapon swap away from fulfilling the role, not a respec away.

This is why you don't PUG explorables, as a general rule.  That kind of co-ordination, which is necessary, isn't as likely in a full on PUG.

[Red_Falcon]

Dungeons can be completed with any team setup so there is no trinity of any sort that's required to do them.


That being said though, some mobs have unbalanced skills that will kill you in one/two hits.
Those need to be looked, because that is not difficulty it's more like D3 Inferno gimmicks.

[Reikou]

I dunno... I just did Twilight Arbor explorable with Mostly Melee thief, and did fine.

[Eternal Arcadia]

Chronos12360, on 09 September 2012 - 04:53 PM, said:

Off topic: I'm not 80 quite yet (have tomorrow off so I'll be there soon hehe) but from what I can tell brains over brawn in this game for sure.  I play mesmer and I'm curious if you'd be willing too share your build for a support mesmer?  I've run through multiple setups on the way upto endgame except a support build but I'm very interested in one.

Now on topic I would like to comment that currently melee is more risky but tbh it is that way in every other game and very true in RL for the most part.  Also I'd like to add that (correct me if I'm wrong) but melee have the bulk of aoe combo finishers? Thieves, warriors, and guardians throwing out extra dmg and support through good group dynamics is a HUGE plus for playing melee imo.

I won't actually link it because I vary from time to time, depending on the dungeon. All I can say is that if u want to play support mesmer you gotta go all out on staff and glamour skills. You get the -20% cooldown trait for staff, and you get all the glamour skill buffs you can get "glamour last longer, glamour recharge rate reduced etc". And you get your "bouncing attacks bounce one additional time" trait and youre good to go. I also sometime put points into focus skills/recharge to have an extra reflect projectile skill for when were fighting multiple mobs and theres rangers in the back shooting.

[CutFade]

Has anyone been hunting with a knife in real life?

[powercozmic]

ph2001, on 09 September 2012 - 04:05 PM, said:

Control specced? Most characters have one or two hard-CCs on a LONG cooldown.

Also, if you need a "controller", a "supporter" and DPS, then ANet lied to us, then there IS a trinity after all.

We dont need a controller or a supporter, all u need is ranged dps and mesmer clones/necro minions.... need melee fixes stat.

[MeltyLotus]

Melee works fine. You just can't be sitting on things.

Go in and unload then roll out and let someone take it for a min so you get your hp then go back in and unload again. Your not suppose to hold aggro forever. Tanking doesn't work like that here. You got to stick and move.

Also a lot of bosses can be circled and most of the damage avoided. If you have the melee assist on it's a lot easier.

[murasamune]

MeltyLotus, on 09 September 2012 - 09:22 PM, said:

Melee works fine. You just can't be sitting on things.

Go in and unload then roll out and let someone take it for a min so you get your hp then go back in and unload again. Your not suppose to hold aggro forever. Tanking doesn't work like that here. You got to stick and move.

Also a lot of bosses can be circled and most of the damage avoided. If you have the melee assist on it's a lot easier.

100% this. i ran AC with NO problems, the melee i ran with did just this. they still died because the fights are challenging but we all enjoyed the challenge and had a great time.

the dungeon difficulty is fine. if they change it i'm gonna be upset.

the dungeon REWARD is not fine. what's the point of doing story a second time?

[Red_Falcon]

dirkaderpa, on 09 September 2012 - 04:42 PM, said:

melee in this game is only for sPvP

*spills beer everywhere*

This gotta be the best joke I've heard in months.

Omedon, on 09 September 2012 - 05:30 PM, said:

Exactly, and THIS is the "death to the trinity" model, not the idea that you never have to co-ordinate "you fulfil this role", you still have to co-ordinate, you are just a weapon swap away from fulfilling the role, not a respec away.

This is why you don't PUG explorables, as a general rule.  That kind of co-ordination, which is necessary, isn't as likely in a full on PUG.

Nope, it's a design flaw.
Anet said we wouldn't be forced to play in certain styles, and a huge chunk of the playerbase is unhappy that mobs are unbalanced to the point the only way of doing dungeons without wiping is to stick to ranged.
One things is going in and out, avoid AoEs etc, another is being completely UNABLE to stay in melee with certain mobs/bosses because you get oneshotted.
This is definitely not "working as intended".

Edited by Red_Falcon, 09 September 2012 - 09:34 PM.

[ph2001]

Red_Falcon, on 09 September 2012 - 09:33 PM, said:

Nope, it's a design flaw.
Anet said we wouldn't be forced to play in certain styles, and a huge chunk of the playerbase is unhappy that mobs are unbalanced to the point the only way of doing dungeons without wiping is to stick to ranged.
One things is going in and out, avoid AoEs etc, another is being completely UNABLE to stay in melee with certain mobs/bosses because you get oneshotted.
This is definitely not "working as intended".

Exactly, and what use is doing some 25% more damage with melee, if we follow the above poster's suggestion and have to stay outside the fight 60% of the time to wait for the heal skill to come back up? Makes no sense.

[dirkaderpa]

Red_Falcon, on 09 September 2012 - 09:33 PM, said:

*spills beer everywhere*

This gotta be the best joke I've heard in months.




Nope, it's a design flaw.
Anet said we wouldn't be forced to play in certain styles, and a huge chunk of the playerbase is unhappy that mobs are unbalanced to the point the only way of doing dungeons without wiping is to stick to ranged.
One things is going in and out, avoid AoEs etc, another is being completely UNABLE to stay in melee with certain mobs/bosses because you get oneshotted.
This is definitely not "working as intended".

It is, its in a disadvantage in anything other than fighting weak mobs 1v1 in PvE. Its worthless in WvW as well. sPvP is the only place its usable.

Also, Anet probably doesn't care about PvE balance, you're just killing mobs, so what some ppl can do it much better than you, the mobs don't care what's OP and UP, just abuse what's broken. Every class has a ranged weapon that functions in PvE, even the guardian.

Edited by dirkaderpa, 10 September 2012 - 04:56 AM.

[Tranquility]

Fortunately, no profession is forced to be melee 100% of the time.

Acting like it is impossible to melee at all in dungeons is just being intellectually dishonest.

Edited by Tranquility, 10 September 2012 - 04:51 AM.

[Alaroxr]

I melee explorable mode dungeons. It's tough, but it's rewarding. It takes a smart build and plenty of experience to pull off though.

One tip: If you primarily use melee, don't be afraid to use a ranged set as well. Sometimes it's just a bad idea to be in melee and you need to go ranged for a bit till you can heal up or the boss changes aggro, etc. The good thing is that you can switch to ranged, blow all your cooldowns, and then when you switch back to melee those cooldowns will be ready as well.

I really don't want to sound like an elitist "L2P newb", but melee is certainly a viable option. People complain about the difficulty but don't consider that they're not playing up to par.

----------

Another thing since I read another post above: I PUG explorable modes and do well. I'm not a super godly player either. All you need is cooperation. Yeah you'll find people that aren't skilled enough for the dungeon, but it's not as if you can never PUG explorables.

Edited by Alaroxr, 10 September 2012 - 05:02 AM.

[John F Kennedy]

I've avoided these forums a lot since release... Not sure if it was good or bad. Either way, I will say what I said in beta. Dungeons are not just dps tanks controllers, supporters or whatever it is. It's a party. Work as a team. If you're going down in melee then dodge back, go to a guardian, an ele or something, get regen, attack from range, and go back in. Not just one person should be providing support. Everyone is able to help their teammates to some extent. if that means the entire group is applying CC to keep mobs locked down or just crippling to keep them from hitting the evasive melee then do it. Don't lone wolf it, you'll die... unless it's story mode arah. But that is a different rant.

[dirkaderpa]

John F Kennedy, on 10 September 2012 - 05:07 AM, said:

I've avoided these forums a lot since release... Not sure if it was good or bad. Either way, I will say what I said in beta. Dungeons are not just dps tanks controllers, supporters or whatever it is. It's a party. Work as a team. If you're going down in melee then dodge back, go to a guardian, an ele or something, get regen, attack from range, and go back in. Not just one person should be providing support. Everyone is able to help their teammates to some extent. if that means the entire group is applying CC to keep mobs locked down or just crippling to keep them from hitting the evasive melee then do it. Don't lone wolf it, you'll die... unless it's story mode arah. But that is a different rant.

No, mobs do not allow for melee to viable by design. Melee is good at dispatching targets quickly once the gap has been closed, and is best done in 1v1 where not many ppl can focused the melee person. This is only good in sPvP and a handful of rare situations in PvE. One of those situations is NOT dungeons.

[Tranquility]

dirkaderpa, on 10 September 2012 - 05:13 AM, said:

No, mobs do not allow for melee to viable by design. Melee is good at dispatching targets quickly once the gap has been closed, and is best done in 1v1 where not many ppl can focused the melee person. This is only good in sPvP and a handful of rare situations in PvE. One of those situations is NOT dungeons.

Well, excellent job putting together a series of words to make what is called a sentence.

Other than that, you are pretty much wrong about everything you typed here. I've done every explorable as a Guardian, with weapon sets being a hammer and staff.

Yes, some fights you can't just plant yourself in melee range and stand there with your thumb up your bum the entire time, but that was never intended to be a valid playstyle. Learn to dodge. Learn to circle strafe. Learn "Protection". Learn to toughness and vitality.

Edited by Tranquility, 10 September 2012 - 05:24 AM.

[Soki]

Dagger/Dagger; Dagger/Pistol for Explorables of TA, AC, and Arah here.
No substantial problems whatsoever.

I hate to be -that person-, but
Learn to play.

Edited by Soki, 10 September 2012 - 05:24 AM.