Guild Wars 2

[olivier renault]

Melee is 100% broken.

TOTAL disadvantage in all situations seeing you using ranged 99% of the time to avoid being downed and killed every 5 seconds.

Died more times as a Thief in the STARTER Story mode up to level 3 than I have total on my mesmer in 17 levels.

Yeah. Shame, I was really looking forward to playing the Guardian, but it seems I spend most of my time rezzing people, or getting rezzed. Playing with no range is frustrating.

From what I played of the beta this weekend this game feels like a giant zerg fest. Didnt even bother playing after friday night. I've preordered anyway, good job there is no sub fee.

Quite funny though

It should settle after a while. Would be nice to have more varied boss tactics. Usually a massive swirling ***storm around a one-shot-kill boss.

Some events are fun though. Usually before the one dimensional boss battle.

I does seem a lot less focused than GW1. Not really a fan of events and mobs respawning constantly.

 

[ChrisJSY]

I wouldn't call it broken though. Once weapon switching kicks in you're pretty much good to go and having the range + melee combo is definitely the best.

That's probably the definition of broken in terms of "switch to a ranged weapon then it's ok".

One thing I notice a lot of melees doing is not watching. They stand toe to toe with everything. Some strafe around things, which works for some enemies. Hardly anyone watches for the animations, and evades, which are critical now, more so for melee.

There's no possible explanation for that other than you haven't seen it when more than 10 people attack a single target, you can't SEE the mob let alone work out what the animations are doing when the mob is being put into "ouch I'm being hit 50 times a second animation" and evads which, PS, even as a ranged you barely have time to get out of, so why would melee?

It's broken, no amount of workaround will explain it away


Taken from a vid I was making to prove a point, pic here
For any big encounter that warrants enough people, this it what it boils down to, I can't see it, I can't see it's animations, I can't see it, when I do see it for a nanosecond it's jerking around in other animations.

 

[Tombstone]

Well I have to say, I'm loving it. I had planned to go with Necro for my main, but after trying out the Thief, I am smitten with it and may well change to Thief for my main. For some reason the Thief is reminding me so much of my Daoc Shadowblade, which is a very good feeling. In fact, the game itself is reminding me of Daoc, which is a good feeling to me.

 

[Sin_Chase]

How weird, you've played exactly the same characters in the same way I have.

I wouldn't call it broken though. Once weapon switching kicks in you're pretty much good to go and having the range + melee combo is definitely the best. A lot of the 2 discipline's skills complement each other, especially as a thief. Pulling off a weapon switch combo is pretty satisfying.

One thing I notice a lot of melees doing is not watching. They stand toe to toe with everything. Some strafe around things, which works for some enemies. Hardly anyone watches for the animations, and evades, which are critical now, more so for melee.

I watch but built in evade runs out too quick and you are not left with many, if any evasion skills.

ANY stealth ability will reset the fight and the mob runs off and the cooldown on Steal is way too slow for it to be a reliable boon/offensive control generator.

The only decent weapon so far for survivability has been a bow which has a baked in retreat/evasion skill, but you have to pool Initiative to use it reliably.

With dual daggers I could control groups somewhat with dagger throw to slow, run in, do a single AoE (Fan) attack and retreat for another dagger throw. Rinse repeat. Stealth if it looks like they get too close and try get back in soon enough after to keep them in combat and not regen health.

On my mesmer every single boss type fight has been anti-melee. One boss in the 15-25 zone does a ground stomp. EVEN at my max mesmer range I had to use a jump back evasion skill or even I, at range, would be 1 hit downed.

How on earth does any melee character expect to be even CLOSE to melee capable range? It's somewhat disappointing melee classes rely so very heavily on ranged options and are not given the tools to at least skilfully stay in melee range. You still get whacked in stealth and pulling off a weapon switch to ranged to use an evasion skill after a boss animation starting + reaction time + ping + evasion landing is just not going to happen.

I quite like the look of thief on paper but not if I cannot be melee with it.

All in all anything melee reminds me of playing WoW and trying to kill a single mob double my level with 1% chance of hitting it and if it even got close to me I was dead. I do not feel effective at all, I feel weak, vulnerable and like I am a total third leg in any kind of group encounter.

 

[Gazanimal]

Got a refund from Cjs so essentially got gw2 for nothing!

Will they just not cancel the key so you don't have access?

On what grounds did you get a refund? Unable to log in or the region error?

 

[bhavv]

If you get the pre purchase cancelled arenanet will cancel your key / account.

Better to just wait for them to fix it, Gaile Gray never lies.

 

[thezakarum]

What kind of gear are you using on you're melee characters guys?

I presume stuff that adds toughness and vitality?

 

[Sin_Chase]

What kind of gear are you using on you're melee characters guys?

I presume stuff that adds toughness and vitality?

The best I can equip and afford to buy.

My mesmer has awesome gear (mostly Trading Post bought) but most stuff will 1 hit down you if you mess about in melee range.

The whole of the game I have seen thus far is "Go into melee at your peril"

I understand the inability to go toe-to-toe HERP DERP auto attack and be okay mentality but literally you cannot stand toe-to-toe for even 2 seconds to fire off a few attacks - You will die.

 

[olivier renault]

What kind of gear are you using on you're melee characters guys?

I presume stuff that adds toughness and vitality?

Yeah. Hammer, or mace and shield. Decent armor, but I still get pummelled.

Melee needs some help, but I don't think it's broken. It's only the first few hours of play anyway. I'm still gonna try Guardian, I don't mind the challenge, and if it means less people going for melee builds, then the better. It's hard work though, and difficult to second guess moves with all the on-screen spam. Gonna have to go full tank at some point.

in WWW, range still is king though. Traps, wells, aoes, barrages... Thieves may have a better shot at getting through the spam.

 

[olivier renault]

The best I can equip and afford to buy.

My mesmer has awesome gear (mostly Trading Post bought) but most stuff will 1 hit down you if you mess about in melee range.

The whole of the game I have seen thus far is "Go into melee at your peril"

I understand the inability to go toe-to-toe HERP DERP auto attack and be okay mentality but literally you cannot stand toe-to-toe for even 2 seconds to fire off a few attacks - You will die.

That's what I end up doing for the bosses. Do a few hits, drop a few buffs, roll backward, fire some more buffs, and go back in. Maybe I need to revise my strategy. I'm not used to play front line, being a long time GW monk. Found it hard closing in on rangers and siege weapons.

Rangers seem to have a nice balance with good long range damage, and the pets for aggro control.

Buff times are pretty short though. I wish they'd be a little longer. Aegis being a one-use-only buff, versus GW1 being an enchantment lasting almost 10 secs.

 

[Chaos]

Does anyone know how to get avi files working with movie maker, or any other converter that will maintain a 1080p resolution?

I usually use format factory for video conversion, not sure if it maintains 1080p but could give it a try.

http://www.formatoz.com/

 

[InKursion]

Quite surprising how many drastically negative comments there have been on here now, considering how I was flamed and fanboy-chased out of the thread

I wouldn't ever go so far to say that an entire type of class is "broken"... but I do agree, some of it needs a helluva lot of work before it is ever ready for refined instance/battleground play. There are some shockingly overlooked flaws to the game so far from what I can say, considering all the messianic preaching and bragging the development staff have been doing.

I say August-September.

 

[TheMeekon]

Yeh dev's usually admit their failures on blogs and press releases :0 They would be given a verbal warning instantly, its all part of the hype machine obviously. InKursion I understand your points but you type in such a self righteous way it's damn annoying.

 

[InKursion]

I think I type perfectly sincerely. Methinks you go out of your way to get upset or aggrieved by what I say. My perfectly reasonable remarks about keybindings seem quite minor compared to some other registered criticisms of the game...

 

[bhavv]

I usually use format factory for video conversion, not sure if it maintains 1080p but could give it a try.

http://www.formatoz.com/

Hopefully it will work, I've got several videos of combat, bosses, and running around divinities reach with the GWGuru guild with tonics and minipets to upload.

I dont know why movie maker isnt working, its always done so before for my afterburner recordings.

 

[TheMeekon]

I think I type perfectly sincerely. Methinks you go out of your way to get upset or aggrieved by what I say. My perfectly reasonable remarks about keybindings seem quite minor compared to some other registered criticisms of the game...

There you go again. Who said I was upset about the context? Its the enjoyment I can see you are getting. I even just said I understand/agree with your criticism but you chose to ignore that.

 

[bhavv]

Methinks you go out of your way to get upset or aggrieved by what I say. My perfectly reasonable remarks about keybindings seem quite minor compared to some other registered criticisms of the game...

I think you go out of your way to carry on trolling and baiting over the single issue of keybinding.

 

[dakaiez]

There you go again. Who said I was upset about the context? Its the enjoyment I can see you are getting. I even just said I understand/agree with your criticism but you chose to ignore that.

It certainly seems that way, people leave it and drop the subject only for a little comment intentionally used to reel everyone back in again.

 

[bhavv]

The best I can equip and afford to buy.

My mesmer has awesome gear (mostly Trading Post bought) but most stuff will 1 hit down you if you mess about in melee range.

The whole of the game I have seen thus far is "Go into melee at your peril"

I understand the inability to go toe-to-toe HERP DERP auto attack and be okay mentality but literally you cannot stand toe-to-toe for even 2 seconds to fire off a few attacks - You will die.

Actually regarding melee, it works better if you have someone healing you.

I was doing the huge bandit event on the farm with most people dropping dead fast, then I switched to water attunement / staff and used the heals and people were managing to stay alive while meleeing.

 

[opethdisciple]

Game looks really good.