Indiana Jones or the Crazy Sword Guy?

 

Remember the scene in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc where the swordsman is flipping his sword around and ready to slice and dice Indie? Yeah it was cool. But then Indie pulls out his gun and shoots the guy. Okay remember that scenario.

I was reading Siadina's post over atTripping Tyria titled, “One, Two ,Three.” She was describing thechallenge of apply FPS principles in GW2. i.e. dodging and strafing. After commenting on the post, I thought of something. (well twothings but #2 is fun surprise.) One of the issues brought up duringthe beta events has been that ranged classes have a dodging advantage overmelee classes.

 

Ranged classes are farther away fromthe bad guy and have a greater view of the battle. Rangedclasses can see incoming attacks and have time to react to them; as aresult, they can more efficiently preserve the limit dodge resourceor decide to prepare a counter boon/condition, and reduce damage. In PvPrange can kite melee quite easily as the game currently stands. Onmy guardian, I had to run down range units so I could get in a“gap-closer”. Unfortunately, range classes can dodge away thensnipe me down. Think Indiana (range) and the sword guy (melee). Now, I can swap my melee weapons and go to range but see whatjust happened? I'm a melee fighting at range. Why play melee when range currently has an advantage?

 

I think the following solution canhelp fix the problem - Increase melee classes' dodge capability byeither increasing the number of times melee can dodge before dodge ison cooldown or increase melee classes' dodge bar recharge rate.

In PvP, melee could use dodge to close-in or as damage mitigation inprep for a skill based gap-closer. In addition, it still will alldepend on the timing and skill of the player. For PvE, it wouldprovide more damage mitigation opportunities since melee are up closeand personal. Most of the typical mobs don't have charged attacks,many are insta-cast and they simply just deal out face-shots and layyou flat on the floor. Having a few more opportunities to avoiddamage increases survivability.


 

Now, having said all this, its stillBETA and who knows what will happen. I know the the second BWEincreased melee damage in part to address the issue, but again, melee needs to get in close. If it can easily kite melee, it won't die.

Sword guy or Indiana. Big up close and personal sword or "Bang!", your dead at 20 yards away. Unfortunately melee lovers it's a situation of being amazingly cool, but, as the l33t vernacular puts it, "pwnd."


 

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