Melee vs Ranged in PvE

Hello one and all.

I began poking around Enigmius channel after Themau posted a really great crafting video series located here: GW2 a Very Very great Guide bout Crafting. I found a great editorial about GW2 Melee vs Ranged in PvE during the BWE.

Link to Video: Melee vs Ranged in Pve

My personal view so far.

I have to say, from my personal view when playing as a warrior I found Melee to be a dominant type of damage over ranged. However, after watching the video I have to admit the following:

• I did not test a ranged weapon on my warrior.
• I did test a ranged weapons on a theif and hunter but did not find them to my liking.
• I did test all melee weapons but only tested two ranged weapons.
• I did not test a condition damage build.

During BWE1, I played both melee and ranged of a couple of classes (rogue, elementalist, guardian). My general feeling was that in most average PvE, melee was not only fine but almost easier because the damage output at low levels was enough to drop critters fairly fast. However, I had a great deal of experience at avoiding aoe circles of doom etc from past MMOs. Despite this, I would still randomly die from one shot stuff from elite mobs with what seemed like no warning. In times like those, I was very thankful that my second weapon on all three characters allowed me to back up and used ranged combat. I know your question was about PvE, but I figured I'd mention PvP too... just because it was a larger part of my play time.In PvP, the weapon type I favored depended entirely on the encounter. In WvWvW, I found it nearly impossible to engage in melee combat, if only because I was so often either attacking or defending a fort, engaging in a standoff with another large group of enemies, or chasing down a lone player with a couple others. In all of these situations, I found that ranged was easier - and sometimes simply better, though at least with chasing players I found melee to be useful on my guardian. However, in sPvP I found the situation was partially reversed - while I could use my ranged abilities, since most fights were relatively even, close quarters, I found melee to be not only quite fun but also very, very effective and useful to my team. Initially I was even reluctant to run with non-support builds for Guardian and Elementalist, but I found that I was able to output enough damage - and still have enough support abilities - that I was very useful to my team as a melee attacker (particularly with Guardian).

» Edited on: 2012-06-24 15:05:59