Melee combat VS Range combat in wvw

[Svez Poizon XD.5268]

Having 2 sides with 30+ players each, makes combat impossible for melee(slow classes) to do anything. I will show few examples to directly explain the problem with balance of wvw only:

Elementalist:

- with sword 130 range, there is no play in wvw, not much damage(too less targets for such short range,too low damage compared to staff)

- with staff, if you play well, you almost always hit 5 targets with some big damage(too many aoe, too many high damage for long range)

 

Solution for problem:

- Damage dealt need to be considered with number of targets, so if spell can hit 5 targets its damage done can be x5

- So naturally melee combat should be stronger in damage than range combat which is not the case in wvw

- Range combat either need to have reduced number of targets or melee combat to have more targets than 5

- Range damage need to be like halved compared to melee damage so it would make sense that you can go in melee range and do something before getting disintegrated on half way to your target

 

In next example we can see how melee is stronger than range:

- thief with melee weapons

- revenant, with swords

- both classes have gap-closer spells which directly allows melee to start fight within its range limits

- it is not the case for many other classes that are naturally slow with their melee weapons

 

**Range weapons that can be changed/nerfed just for wvw:**

Revenant's hammer,shortbow

Elementalist's staff,storms

Ranger's longbow

Mesmer's greatsword,staff

Thief's riffle,shortbow

Necromancer's wells, sand shade

 

- these classes with such range setups just directly deny any melee weapon to see any play

- in 1v1 it would be ok but in many vs many melee is impossible to work with current balance

 

**There are many melee weapons that needs some buff only in wvw:**

- elementalist: sword,dagger(s)

- warrior:greatsword,axe(s),sword(s)

- ranger: greatsword,sword, dagger(s)

- revenant: mace,staff

- necromancer: greatsword, dagger

- mesmer: axe,sword

- guardian: greatsword,sword

- engineer: hammer, sword, melee engineering kits(flamethrower, bombs)

- for thief nothing as thief has easy solutions to always start fight from melee range

 

(This is just feedback from some player who play's wvw for many years and tried so many classes, builds, both plays in zerg and as roamer....)

[XenesisII.1540]

Gee wiz, I wonder how this will affect boon balling groups....

 

There's a lot of projectile hate in the game already with shields, invuls, reflects, blocks.

The other range aoes you have to worry about is ground aoes, which a lot of them can also be blocked or simply dodged out of.

Every class has access to gap closers (especially melee weapons compared to range weapons) or speed of some sort.

Most melee weapons already have cleave of up to 3 targets, which also affects auto attacks which have no cooldowns.

There are many other utilities a weapon provides other things than just damage to look at, this also goes for the class as a whole. There's a reason why necros were one of the slowest classes for years.

Also cooldowns tend to be much higher and longer cast times on most aoes than single target skills, they're also crappy in singles fights, so you're at a disadvantage at range for those fights.

 

You're going to have to look at it as a whole, and not just the damage.

[Dawdler.8521]

All classes have ranged and melee. Your basic argument for an imbalance based on class fails.

 

Also most of the fastest runners are melee. In fact most of the strongest 1v1 builds are either fully melee or heavy melee with backup ranged, with only a few being fully dedicated ranged (soulbeast pewpew most notably). I find this thread terribly misguided with some points on buffing particular melee that make it what I can only assume is a joke.

[Infusion.7149]

**Re: buffing melee weapons**

Guardian does not need buffs to melee weapons and neither does engineer. Case in point: the amount of marauder power guardians and DPS scrappers.

 

Scrappers with bomb kit were extremely common to the point of ubiquitous before the bomb kit auto was shaved.

 

Similarly, dagger does not need help on elementalist whatsoever as it's used on support tempest and any dps front or midline tempest (including condi versions).

 

Spellbreakers are seen quite often with greatsword for two reasons: mobility and fury. The fury gained by greatsword improves arcing slice burst damage. It also has cleave roughly on par with axe. Support spellbreakers run sword for mobility with warhorn offhands so mainhand sword doesn't need help.

 

Ranger greatsword doesn't need buffs and neither does sword as both have gap closers and decent damage especially when you account for merged bonuses. Melee soulbeast stanceshare while not meta is also used as immob soulbeast.

 

Condi herald was oppressive according to some at one point so buffing mace isn't a wise suggestion. It still has burning on it along with torment (which is far stronger in WVW than in PVP in terms of the added damage on movement). The only thing that really changed on revenant staff in the past year or so is surge of the mists damage was removed , so that could be looked at.

 

Necromancer greatsword doesn't need help , although dagger could it is unlikely to see use _regardless_ due to only hitting 2 targets. It's more so that reaper has a dilemma that it can only gear for one of two states, in shroud or out of shroud. Damage out of shroud is typically poor.

 

Mesmer axe is a hybrid condi weapon and comes with mirage spec , which is a trainwreck in large-scale. I'd say for it to be viable mirage needs to be two dodges again first and it has to have good utility in the grand scheme of things to warrant bringing over chronos.

 

**Re: sword weaver**

While sword weaver is not really viable in large scale people use it in smallscale ; you can use full marauder and master's fortitude to offset the health of elementalist along with runes with toughness such as durability. It has a typically poor matchup against anything with range however. That's more to do with the class itself than the weapon ; if elementalist had ranged spells as utilities on short cooldown and another gap closer besides lighting flash it would be more usable in large scale.

 

**Re: ranged weapons**

You're also not factoring in the "per second" part of DPS. Melee weapons hit more often.

 

Revenant hammer has been nerfed _plenty_ of times, its original iteration at inception was 2 second recharge with over 2.0 power coefficient which is far more than what it does now. The auto attack is also projectile. Revenant shortbow while stronger in PVP isn't that amazing in WVW. It's still projectile and the tracking isn't good. Running shortbow means you're renegade which brings a few other challenges such as mobility and losing 33% crit chance every time you dodge.

 

Elementalists' meteor shower was nerfed heavily in the past along with lava font and now if you use it you are likely to take a massive amount of retal damage if using meteor. That is also assuming you get it off, meteor shower is one of the longest cast times in the game.

 

Ranger longbow doesn't need nerfs I think, the only thing strong about it is rapidfire which doesn't work well in a group setting (plus it eats a lot of retal).

 

Mesmer greatsword isn't very strong at all. The only thing good about it is nothing is projectile. Mesmer staff is essentially all projectile and is a hybrid weapon since the warlock is power damage. That means in order to extract maximum damage you need to be viper , grieving, or carrion which is less tanky than trailblazer for example.

 

Thief rifle is only strong in a low man environment. It's not oppressive as you make it out to be in group environments and the more revealed is out there the less viable it is. Thief shortbow was nerfed due to PVP, the mobility is heavily cut down now and the damage was never anything amazing.

 

Necromancer wells have been more or less the same since 2012. I don't think they need nerfs at all. Sand shades used to be 5 targets for a bit and do more than they are doing now, they're in a decent spot now.

[subversiontwo.7501]

Many shorter ranged weapons already have higher damage outputs, it is only that it is negligible without context.

 

When overall damage output is lower and groups can sustain each other for longer this creates a demand for those weapons.

 

That is what we are seeing budding examples of now in the meta with many "flex damage" builds (builds that combine ranged and melee weapons).

 

This is also why you see salty pirates on the forums so much now, arrr :) .

[Svez Poizon XD.5268]

Well what i currently play is staff weaver with quickness sigils, quick burst aoe combo with meteor shower of 2700 range(burning retreat+blink).

And Soulbeast with longbow-longbow(quickdraw trait) barrage(9 sec cd) spam and all i can say is that damage is too much.

 

Having many people like this makes melee impossible to work, also i mentioned wvw situation of 30+ vs 30+ players.

 

My point is to allow some melee slow classes to have a chance to at least reach their targets and do something.

I tried personally to play melee builds(exclude thief and rev) and if you even try to walk to enemy, you die with ranged chain cc all on you, there is just nothing you can do about it.

 

Many of these key damage range abilities aren't projectiles which makes all those spells to land directly on targets far away and burst them to death.

[Infusion.7149]

> @"Svez Poizon XD.5268" said:

> Well what i currently play is staff weaver with quickness sigils, quick burst aoe combo with meteor shower of 2700 range(burning retreat+blink).

> And Soulbeast with longbow-longbow(quickdraw trait) barrage(9 sec cd) spam and all i can say is that damage is too much.

>

> Having many people like this makes melee impossible to work, also i mentioned wvw situation of 30+ vs 30+ players.

>

> My point is to allow some melee slow classes to have a chance to at least reach their targets and do something.

> I tried personally to play melee builds(exclude thief and rev) and if you even try to walk to enemy, you die with ranged chain cc all on you, there is just nothing you can do about it.

>

> Many of these key damage range abilities aren't projectiles which makes all those spells to land directly on targets far away and burst them to death.

 

If your situation is reflective of what you experience, it doesn't reflect the current state of WvW. Firstly, any comped squad has superspeed , stability, and condi clear.

 

Secondly, almost all melee is in full minstrel right now (support spellbreaker, firebrand, support scrapper, support chrono, tempest) or some sort of marauder armor and/or durability runes combo if they are low health (for example DPS spellbreaker, DPS scrapper, power reaper , power "immob" soulbeast, power DH/core guard).

 

Power ranged damage such as staff weaver, power hammer herald , and power scourge all are lower damage than they were in HOT and up until last year.

 

---------------

edit:

 

@ subversiontwo.7501

It's more reflective of an organized group vs an unorganized one.

The only way to have concrete numbers is in armistice bastion. With actual fight scenarios you might have a huge damage skew of 25 vulnerability, 25 might, full boons , keep bonuses, borderlands bloodlust, and food+utility. Defensively this also applies, you might have players running full minstrel also using karka potion (why is this still usable in WvW when it is 2021) , keep bonuses, damage reduction food , 40% protection damage reduction on tempest/scrappers, etc.

[Svez Poizon XD.5268]

All i am saying is that i do up to 50k to 200k damage with quick combo, moving back for reset then going in again with range setup whitin 5 to 10 seconds.

 

Currently my server(FoW) is linked with UW which is in tier 1. However all i see now and what i saw before is that if melee team tries to go in, people split and move away from their path, set range red circles with damage, cc so they have to stop chasing or they start dying.

 

Only play for melee team is with stealth play but even then, you can use range weapons beneath yourself and do better than melee weapons(I am pointing mostly about melee damage vs range dmg, weapons used for supportive way is other story).

 

What i wanted to try but i also never saw(in wvw from other players) is tempest with Fresh Air trait, moving in, doing air overloads. Not just that spell has 3 targets only in very small range but also with 4 seconds cast time but its damage is very small now compared what it was long ago. And when spell cast is complete you give shock aura which again only works in melee range.

- my point with this is: why would i go in as tempest overloading air to 3 targets in melee if i can use staff to deal 200k damage on 5 targets in 5-10 sec with quickness sigils?

[Dawdler.8521]

> @"Svez Poizon XD.5268" said:

> All i am saying is that i do up to 50k to 200k damage with quick combo, moving back for reset then going in again with range setup whitin 5 to 10 seconds.

Can you do it to a single dagger thief about to backstab and stun you for 80-120% of your HP pool in melee range?

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

Thief shortbow and rifle guys is oppressive in WvW zergs ???? I’ve seen it all now.

 

Your experience unfortunately doesn’t match the reality that, yes, range is strong in zergs but there are tons of ways to get around that with any organized group. Also half of the range weapons you listed aren’t even a problem in zergs or have already been highly nerfed in WvW. Thief shortbow abd rifle are extremely good examples of weapons that don’t perform well at all in any sort of large Zerg environment. Rev hammer is a good example of a ranged weapon that has been repeatedly nerfed for WvW to the point that it’s a shadow of what I once was and incredibly buggy since the reworks as well.

 

Different environments call for different weapon sets. It’s fine if a certain build or weapon set excels in zerg vs zerg but doesn’t excel in smaller scale or 1v1

[Sobx.1758]

What even is this ridiculous, clearly "super well thought out" thread?

 

tl;dr:

1. Here's what can be nerfed:

Anything I want to get nerfed *because I said so*.

 

2. Here's what can be buffed:

Anything I want to get buffed *because I said so*.

 

3. Also here are 2 classes I think are fine in melee, because they have mobility (TOTALLY just these 2 classes, right? Unbiased, valid information all around), but ~~*since I play one of them*,~~ one of those classes doesn't need buffs at all and the other does because logic and nice avatar.

 

Solid.

 

_________________

 

 

> **There are many melee weapons that needs some buff only in wvw:**

> - elementalist: sword,dagger(s)

 

By what logic?

 

> - warrior:greatsword,axe(s),sword(s)

 

Again (maybe other than sword, but that'd still probably need to be a revamp/update more than a "buff") -by what logic?

 

> - ranger: greatsword,sword, dagger(s)

 

This one just has to be a meme, I assume?

 

> - revenant: mace,staff

 

By what logic?

 

> - necromancer: greatsword, dagger

 

By what logic?

 

> - mesmer: axe,sword

 

By what logic?

 

> - guardian: greatsword,sword

 

By what logic?

 

> - engineer: hammer, sword, melee engineering kits(flamethrower, bombs)

 

By what logic?

 

> - for thief nothing as thief has easy solutions to always start fight from melee range

 

You got one right I guess.

 

> (This is just feedback from some player who play's wvw for many years and tried so many classes, builds, both plays in zerg and as roamer....)

 

lmao, ok. Too bad that "buff this, nerf that because I said so" isn't how you "give feedback". Giving some blanket justification for mass change of many different weapons (with different *roles* they have) of many different classes (with different capabilities) just doesn't really work and if you can't be bothered to actually make a case for each of them, then maybe don't pretend you want to *give feedback*.

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"Svez Poizon XD.5268" said:

> All i am saying is that i do up to 50k to 200k damage with quick combo, moving back for reset then going in again with range setup whitin 5 to 10 seconds.

>

 

Sorry to burst your bubble, but any player who eats a meteor shower in WvW, no matter which range the elementalist is at when he started/finished casting, is a scrub. Works great against attackers trying to get into a tower which do not move or clear ledges, but that's about it. Also damage means nothing, because while you do those amazing 50-200k on a spot, I am healing all of that away with my heal scrapper, unless it comes focused by multiple characters, in which case all the squad does is take a step to the side, then ignore all staff elementalists for 30 seconds.

 

As mentioned by Infusion.7149, the current meta setups have superspeed, massive cleanse and stability, as well as resurrection utilities. There is a reason why power weaver/elementalist has fallen out of meta, and the reason is: it's just not tanky enough and to stationary in its damage. Revenants and Scourges as well as power DH/core guardians and reapers are all decent at range as well as melee while having innate more sustain and better damage skills on the move.

 

Here is what is going to happen to a squad full of power elementalists: they get run down open field, or denied line of sight at objectives and if careless provide a ton of immediate downstates from those rev spikes. There is nothing nicer than targeting an enemy elementalist and knowing that he will face plant from not even a full damage combo of any other meta power dps.

 

Oh that is obviously only the case if the enemy group does not INTENTIONALLY sustain against your meteor shower and let you die to retaliation, which you can do literally nothing against.

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

horrible idea, lacking largescaleexperience i guess.

 

the big push normally happens in melee. scrouge is mostly melee with its corrupts and shades, herald swords are melee as well. even for the well u need a range, where u're very open for weaver and hammerbombs

 

some of the recommended buffs here are yet meta?

 

i do agree with the rangenerfs, but not for wells/hammer-rev. they stole herald a ton of damage yet. aiming for hammer2 got messed up, hammer5 has no dmg anymore despite slow and obvious, herald elite (facet o chaos) has no dmg anymore... so please, just leave the class alone. also (as OP mentioned) staff was meta and just got made useless.