There were some threads in this forum, that Thief is overpowered. So whom should I belive?
Warriors are great fun in PvE. In PvP players should use sword and shield.
Necromancer have a lot of survivability but do not as much damage as others.
Ranger pet is still buggy. All pvp-videos on youtube just show a ranger standing behind a group of teammates lashing out huge amounts of damage often against one outnumbered opponent. That is not op^^ (btw, sometimes you can see from the score that the team is actually losing the match, because they are just ganking around).
Guardians are not supposed to be high-damage-dealers. However, most players seem to be very satisfied with this class in PvP.
Mesmer seems to be a rather complicated class. It has a lot of utility and survivability. Some say, that Mesmer is a pain in the ass in PvP.
Engineer obviously needs some love.
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.
Maybe WoW Mage players that are hopping over to GW2 pick the Elementalist because it's the closest to being a WoW Mage?
I'm going for Necromancer just to be a little more original, I don't like being part of the most played class in any MMORPG.
Probably part of it. There's also the fallacy of "Melee is useless in this game, Ranged is infinitely superior, and ELementalist are the most obvious pewpew dps range class, so go ele!"
Maybe WoW Mage players that are hopping over to GW2 pick the Elementalist because it's the closest to being a WoW Mage?
I'm going for Necromancer just to be a little more original, I don't like being part of the most played class in any MMORPG.
Probably part of it. There's also the fallacy of "Melee is useless in this game, Ranged is infinitely superior, and ELementalist are the most obvious pewpew dps range class, so go ele!"
Melee is definitely not useless. But having played a guardian in BWE1 and an Ele / Necro in BWE2, I can definitely say that I would rather be defending AND assaulting a keep as a ranged class
Well.. you can pretty much tell that without playing anything at all really, which is probably what a lot of people realise.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Maybe WoW Mage players that are hopping over to GW2 pick the Elementalist because it's the closest to being a WoW Mage?
I'm going for Necromancer just to be a little more original, I don't like being part of the most played class in any MMORPG.
Probably part of it. There's also the fallacy of "Melee is useless in this game, Ranged is infinitely superior, and ELementalist are the most obvious pewpew dps range class, so go ele!"
Melee is definitely not useless. But having played a guardian in BWE1 and an Ele / Necro in BWE2, I can definitely say that I would rather be defending AND assaulting a keep as a ranged class
Well.. you can pretty much tell that without playing anything at all really, which is probably what a lot of people realise.
I think the problem with that is people don't think.
In keep defense, melee should not be rushing outside for the obvious reason they will be roflstomped. I can't argue there, 50 v 1 is bad odds. But what they can do is harass seige builders, patrol the roads for people running up with supply and gank it, go capture enemy supply camps, and repair doors. Or if you really must, go ranged and rain down fire from the walls.
Offense is another matter. the reason kep sieges are such a pain in the butt sometimes even with 80 million attacks is the attackers just don't think. Everyone aims at the door and ignroed the walls, then wonders why all the aoe spam from above their heads is kicking their butts in. Have your ranged, esp those with CC, lock down the walls with aoe spam and such, let your melee handle the doors, or better yet your siege. Even if you can't kill the defenders on the wall because they run and heal, if they're too busy doing that they aren't getting much defending done.
I've seen a few guilds get the concept of area denial, and it's hilarious to watch a small group that focuses effectively tear up entire keep sieges by giving the defense team the hotfoot.
The OP's post is founded entirely upon his subjective perspective. The best stats we have available to us indicate that there is no more than a 5% discrepancy between the most played and least played classes, which is about normal for MMOs. As for my personal experiences, which are largely irrelevant on the grand scale, I felt I encountered a steady mix of classes. I also liked that I couldn't readily identify each class until I saw them perform a few abilities. That certainly adds an element to pvp.
I think the problem with that is people don't think.
In keep defense, melee should not be rushing outside for the obvious reason they will be roflstomped. I can't argue there, 50 v 1 is bad odds. But what they can do is harass seige builders, patrol the roads for people running up with supply and gank it, go capture enemy supply camps, and repair doors. Or if you really must, go ranged and rain down fire from the walls.
Offense is another matter. the reason kep sieges are such a pain in the butt sometimes even with 80 million attacks is the attackers just don't think. Everyone aims at the door and ignroed the walls, then wonders why all the aoe spam from above their heads is kicking their butts in. Have your ranged, esp those with CC, lock down the walls with aoe spam and such, let your melee handle the doors, or better yet your siege. Even if you can't kill the defenders on the wall because they run and heal, if they're too busy doing that they aren't getting much defending done.
I've seen a few guilds get the concept of area denial, and it's hilarious to watch a small group that focuses effectively tear up entire keep sieges by giving the defense team the hotfoot.
You basically just said it yourself: ranged job in attacking keeps is to rain down fire and destruction on the guys on the walls, keeping them from the cannons / mortars etc. While the melee tries to block incoming attacks and assaults the door.
I'm not sure what you would rather do, but spamming shields and buffs at the door while whacking at it on my guardian, really didn't seem as exciting as blasting away from a distance and seeing the results.
I'm definitely not saying melee doesn't have a role, they most certainly are very necessary for a successful team, but the job of ranged is much more cleanly defined and some would say, more fun. It's in the developers' hands to give melee a purpose in these sieges.
I think it's a problem in every game though, even in PvE you usually see that ranged > melee if things like DPS are the same. I guess it's the same reason why wars are fought with guns on each side nowadays
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
It's probably dependant on wich server you play. I've seen my fair share of Elementalists around, but I see quite some other classes as well. On that note, I seem to lean more towards Warrior, Thief and Guardian myself, rather than an Elementalist.
People are not playing the elementalist because it dominates in PvP...its because the class is fun as hell to play. The 4 different elements add an amazing amount of variety to how you can approach combat and the weapon variety adds even more depth to that.
May be the best class I have seen in an MMO in the last 10 years.
You know what would make melee more fun to play in WvW? More group mechanics.
What I mean by this is that melee in medieval fights were deadly because they worked together to form nasty sorties to throw back enemies, or climbed up siege towers/ladders to assault the wall defenders directly.
I think the problem right now is that melee classes have no way to directly attack keep defenders in WvW, which leaves them the options of either operating siege equipment or beating down the gates/walls with a sword.
But if they could, say, create a shield formation to protect themselves while running a battering ram, or build a siege ladder to actually take the fight to the enemy, melee would be a hell of a lot of fun - not to mention scary for the defenders.
As people get used to the idea that it isn't the class the "pwns" it's the player behind it, we'll see less "omg melee is weak/op" and "game is all about ranged dps".
Sometime track me down a <roll eyes> emote. Same trivel different decade.
I admit, I was one of the offenders this last BWE. xD Leveled a new character (ele) to 16 and had great fun. I only regret that I didn't pick up the dual daggers sooner, since this is the set I liked most.
As far as WvW is concerned I didn't manage to get much playtime, because of lag issues when I tried to. But as someone who's used to "maining" a warrior in WvW I didn't have as much fun on my ele. I can't say why, really. I just wished I was on my other character and really missed my warhorn for fast group running. I was using a staff at the time, which does have a similar ability (Windborn Speed), but the cooldown is 30 seconds and has a much smaller radius, whereas the warrior's buff (Charge) is with only 20s CD, 1200 radius and removes conditions, which practically allowed me and my friend to have Speed buff on us at all times when running between objectives.
Melee will always have a tough time fighting ranged, up until the point they get within range.
2 poorly played characters will always come down to whoever get's the most hits in, usually ranged against melee is a free kill.
A well played melee however will dominate lightly armoured casters by using their charge/teleport abilities, stuns and line of sight obstacles. All you need do is look at the rogues/warriors/DK's in WoW to see how things can be done. I've seen video's of hammer warriors knocking other classes around like skittles. I think it's WAY too early to be talking about balance issues, let's see how the classes perform with some skilled players behind the wheel.
Not saying the beta testers aren't skilled or anything but 2 weekends of playing with a month break in the middle isn't anywhere near enough time to become good, competent maybe. How many players can claim they know a class inside and out after 4 days. Sorry to burst anyones bubble but nobody has played enough yet to claim balance issues.
On topic: Harry Potter and Legolas would be my guess
Ranger and Mage archtypes are popular throughout the genre.
Someone makes a <Insert Class Here> is OP video and everyone wants one.
u notice elementalist and rangers the most for a reason
elementalist = Fire Water Air and earth spells all around are noticiable...
rangers = animals around? oh yeah
from far away u see a armored garr....is a guardian ? warrior?
necros = well the spell of necros are more subtle than ele :S , the aoes for example...a rain of fire vs random circle on the ground.
and eles are far from OP , in WvWvW meh staff is ok....for aoe , but are doing really nothing than moving the dedfenders on the wall....u arent killing them for sure lol...
and melee vs ranged? what????????????
while warrior ranged needs love....
thief dual pistols are amazing
guardian isnt bad (and will get more ranged love )
hell my ele was using dagger / dagger in PvP and i was having a blast.... FULL MELEE! noooooo u are a ranged..
eles/rangers arent RANGED CLASSES
warriors / guardians /thiefs arent MELEE CLASSES
get this out your head already ...Gw2 is different!
You basically just said it yourself: ranged job in attacking keeps is to rain down fire and destruction on the guys on the walls, keeping them from the cannons / mortars etc. While the melee tries to block incoming attacks and assaults the door.
I'm not sure what you would rather do, but spamming shields and buffs at the door while whacking at it on my guardian, really didn't seem as exciting as blasting away from a distance and seeing the results.
I'm definitely not saying melee doesn't have a role, they most certainly are very necessary for a successful team, but the job of ranged is much more cleanly defined and some would say, more fun. It's in the developers' hands to give melee a purpose in these sieges.
I think it's a problem in every game though, even in PvE you usually see that ranged > melee if things like DPS are the same. I guess it's the same reason why wars are fought with guns on each side nowadays
Here's the problem though: What we end up with is an entire army trying to be artillery. Refer to trench warfare ala WWI+II. ground troops sat on their asses for months, while artillery on each side turned the ground between them into no man's land. And NOTHING got done. It turned battles into protracted hellholes where your biggest threat was the constant damp in the trenches making your feet rot.
That's not a scenario I want to see in WvW.
To address a second point, I get that you personally would enjoy plasting teh walls from range rather then smacking the hell out of them in melee and dropping buffs. That's fine. But do we really want a game where everyone goes for the same role? I think there's no reason we can't have viable ranged and melee in wvw right now, but it requires several things:
1) Players need to quit being afraid of melee.
2) Ranged players need to focus less on the door and more on the defenders. I've seen WvW runs where NO ONE attacked the defenders on the walls, and they wondered why they kept getting beaten. They actually griped in /squad that the solution to this was to make doors easier to kill!
3) Killing people in WvW MATTERS. Every player that dies has to run, often a good distance, to get back in the action. Take them out, get them killed, patrol the roads and keep them from getting back into base. Once again, the job of melee. I cannot tell you how many times I walked through an entire field of enemy attackers to waltz into my own team's gate unharmed. Because all they focus on is the door. Kill the players first. THEN the door.
On a third note, allow me to assure you ranged does not beat melee in 1v1. As a melee mesmer I killed plenty of rangers and eles. And poor, sorry engineers. If you don't know how to play one of those right, 1v1 is NOT the place for you. Necros are a pain though, takes forever to burn them down. Better to lock them down and wait for them to run out of lifeforce.
As a guardian who focused on CC and pounce, jumping towards my target type of abilities all I can say is I am quite pleased with how many elementalists are out there lol.
Even without the jumping skills... eles and rangers couldn't kill me before I got in on them and then most panicked because of the old inccorect mentality of "I'm a ranged DPS class and a melee is on me, i need to run".
Once players break the old habits tactics might have to change which brings in new excitement.
I almost always play a ranger first in any game that has them, i usually keep away from the robed squishy wizard types like the plague but i find the elementalist in GW2 to be a real blast (literally) to play, then again i like every class in the game...
Range in GW2 is win in a lot of areas. Granted melee is awesome in close quaters or if and when they do get up close but they have to get there. Elementalists have great range ST and AoE and when melee get close, huge close range DPS. I personally think there is some balance problems but not so bad that they cant be fixed. I say roll the class you enjoy playing and that way you dont get upset when you dont think your class is not OP any more.
Not sure if you played the most recent build of the game or not but ranged damage and movement speed was reduced quite a bit. Not siege stuff, mind you. If a castle has arrowcarts etc. your crew should be building counter siege equipment to take them down (catapults, etc). Not running wildly against the castle doors for no reason.
Ranged does practically zero damage in comparison to melee.
I'm not sure how anyone got the idea that running up to a castle wall with a sword in hand was going to do a whole lot. In the beginning of sieging any castle worth any weight at all you want to stand back and protect your siege equipment that you should have. If you don't itll be a long siege of you throwing your lifeless body against the castle doors.
I'm also not sure who's been saying that ranged is better than melee at all. The two go pretty seemlessly together. Usually you start a fight with your ranged weapon out and try to slow or cripple while dodging your oponents and doing damage. After crippling you'll either close the distance or try to gain some more. In general kiting doesn't really stick as a long term strategy in this game though. PvE mobs now target characters who attempt to stay ranged for a certain periode of time and in WvWvW attempting to kite someone will usually just get you killed. Characters attempting to stay completely at range now seem to get special attention from most players and get shut down mercilessly. Sense melee run faster than ranged its pretty easy to close distance as well unless your playing against someone who is really struggling and can't dodge the cripples and knockbacks or can't just run in a straight line constantly.
Most character who tried to kite me I just ran directly at them, used my leap and they generally died with ease as I would pull out my melee weapons before them and get the jump on doing melee damage, which is about 3x as much as ranged with any weapon loadout.
Instead of cranking up healing or something people could just act smarter during sieges. If your a melee oriented character the first part of your siege should be devoted to protecting the siege equipment your team has brought to destroy the other teams (if they have them) or to take down a gate/wall.
It has nothing to do with melee being underpowered during sieges. Believe me, they play a vital role once a breach is made and in protecting siege equipment before-hand. It has everything to do with logic.
There are archers and thieves with guns standing on top of a wall armed with arrow-shooting cannons and burning oil with a gate. So what exactly did you expect a guy with a sword was gonna do once he waltzed his way up there? Jump two stories up to land on the wall? Punch a hole through the gate? Ranged isn't exactly useful before a breach either. Sure you can deal a tiny bit of damage to the defenders on the wall but once you get them down to half health they will just take two steps backwards and heal.
Gotta have siege equipment unless your playing against a very poorly organized group.
Trying to bust down a gate with your weapons isn't supposed to be fun, really. The gates are meant to be taken down with siege equipment. Guardians provide bubbles and such while rams do their thing and thats the melee approach. Trebuchets are more the ranged approach. Either way works though as long as you have a good team.
You shouldn't be trying to take down a fortified tower/castle unless you have siege equipment though. Its one of my biggest pet pieves to see people complain about how long it takes to destroy a gate then to find out they were trying to punch it down.
In that time they, undoubtably, wasted trying to punch a hole through stone a few people could have held the line while the rest got some rams or equipment in general. Why you would want to sit there for a half hour edging away at a gate is beyond me. People do it though. Or try to. Me and my guild held a tower as seafarers rest for a good while and deterred about 30+ people away from our keep with only about 6 of us. We had put up arrocarts and oil. Instead of going back to get any equipment the whole mob just mindlessly threw themselves into our killing field. They did minimal damage to our gate and the siege went on for an extremely long time. They would have anhialated us if someone was smart enough to pool some resources and by even one tribuchet.
We would have been forced to engage them in melee to try to destroy it and would have failed miserably for sure (6 vs. 30? lol).
I made a thief which I never really play in mmo's because I usually dont have any fun with them and it was propably the most fun ive had playing an mmo since SWG. As soon as I got dual wielding pistols and daggers it was on like donkey kong, by far the funnest class ive tried in the game so far which is VERY surprising to me.
ranged job in attacking keeps is to rain down fire and destruction on the guys on the walls, keeping them from the cannons / mortars etc. While the melee tries to block incoming attacks and assaults the door.
[not replying to F. directly but using the above for context]
Have I misunderstood something completely when I think that getting the doors down is only one phase of one part of WvWvW? Wouldn't melee will be quite useul e.g. in cleaning up the walls and courtyards of those ranged weaklings after you bring down the door with your siege weapons (not with your pesky swords)?
EDIT: Although I do hope that any group attacking the keep I happen to be defending are full of melees hitting on the door in a nice and tight 5x5 meter package.
I played theif,necro and ranger. Thats all i got the chance to play. Havent been a big fan of caster classes in games. Theif was my favorite, the get in get out play with dagger and pistol was to much fun. Necro was pretty cool qand i gave up on ranger,the pet was so buggy it seemed pointless to play with it,stupid pet would rarely attack. I will be for sure playing theif as my main,but im gonna give some of the other classes a try to see if they change my mind next BWE.
Comments
So Elementalist is a fun class - good to know
There were some threads in this forum, that Thief is overpowered. So whom should I belive?
Warriors are great fun in PvE. In PvP players should use sword and shield.
Necromancer have a lot of survivability but do not as much damage as others.
Ranger pet is still buggy. All pvp-videos on youtube just show a ranger standing behind a group of teammates lashing out huge amounts of damage often against one outnumbered opponent. That is not op^^ (btw, sometimes you can see from the score that the team is actually losing the match, because they are just ganking around).
Guardians are not supposed to be high-damage-dealers. However, most players seem to be very satisfied with this class in PvP.
Mesmer seems to be a rather complicated class. It has a lot of utility and survivability. Some say, that Mesmer is a pain in the ass in PvP.
Engineer obviously needs some love.
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.
Probably part of it. There's also the fallacy of "Melee is useless in this game, Ranged is infinitely superior, and ELementalist are the most obvious pewpew dps range class, so go ele!"
I loved playing the elementist-so much so-I need to try another class next beta like warrior.
Melee is definitely not useless. But having played a guardian in BWE1 and an Ele / Necro in BWE2, I can definitely say that I would rather be defending AND assaulting a keep as a ranged class
Well.. you can pretty much tell that without playing anything at all really, which is probably what a lot of people realise.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
I think the problem with that is people don't think.
In keep defense, melee should not be rushing outside for the obvious reason they will be roflstomped. I can't argue there, 50 v 1 is bad odds. But what they can do is harass seige builders, patrol the roads for people running up with supply and gank it, go capture enemy supply camps, and repair doors. Or if you really must, go ranged and rain down fire from the walls.
Offense is another matter. the reason kep sieges are such a pain in the butt sometimes even with 80 million attacks is the attackers just don't think. Everyone aims at the door and ignroed the walls, then wonders why all the aoe spam from above their heads is kicking their butts in. Have your ranged, esp those with CC, lock down the walls with aoe spam and such, let your melee handle the doors, or better yet your siege. Even if you can't kill the defenders on the wall because they run and heal, if they're too busy doing that they aren't getting much defending done.
I've seen a few guilds get the concept of area denial, and it's hilarious to watch a small group that focuses effectively tear up entire keep sieges by giving the defense team the hotfoot.
The OP's post is founded entirely upon his subjective perspective. The best stats we have available to us indicate that there is no more than a 5% discrepancy between the most played and least played classes, which is about normal for MMOs. As for my personal experiences, which are largely irrelevant on the grand scale, I felt I encountered a steady mix of classes. I also liked that I couldn't readily identify each class until I saw them perform a few abilities. That certainly adds an element to pvp.
You basically just said it yourself: ranged job in attacking keeps is to rain down fire and destruction on the guys on the walls, keeping them from the cannons / mortars etc. While the melee tries to block incoming attacks and assaults the door.
I'm not sure what you would rather do, but spamming shields and buffs at the door while whacking at it on my guardian, really didn't seem as exciting as blasting away from a distance and seeing the results.
I'm definitely not saying melee doesn't have a role, they most certainly are very necessary for a successful team, but the job of ranged is much more cleanly defined and some would say, more fun. It's in the developers' hands to give melee a purpose in these sieges.
I think it's a problem in every game though, even in PvE you usually see that ranged > melee if things like DPS are the same. I guess it's the same reason why wars are fought with guns on each side nowadays
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
I'm totally going for Mesmer
People are not playing the elementalist because it dominates in PvP...its because the class is fun as hell to play. The 4 different elements add an amazing amount of variety to how you can approach combat and the weapon variety adds even more depth to that.
May be the best class I have seen in an MMO in the last 10 years.
You know what would make melee more fun to play in WvW? More group mechanics.
What I mean by this is that melee in medieval fights were deadly because they worked together to form nasty sorties to throw back enemies, or climbed up siege towers/ladders to assault the wall defenders directly.
I think the problem right now is that melee classes have no way to directly attack keep defenders in WvW, which leaves them the options of either operating siege equipment or beating down the gates/walls with a sword.
But if they could, say, create a shield formation to protect themselves while running a battering ram, or build a siege ladder to actually take the fight to the enemy, melee would be a hell of a lot of fun - not to mention scary for the defenders.
Sometime track me down a <roll eyes> emote. Same trivel different decade.
I admit, I was one of the offenders this last BWE. xD Leveled a new character (ele) to 16 and had great fun. I only regret that I didn't pick up the dual daggers sooner, since this is the set I liked most.
As far as WvW is concerned I didn't manage to get much playtime, because of lag issues when I tried to. But as someone who's used to "maining" a warrior in WvW I didn't have as much fun on my ele. I can't say why, really. I just wished I was on my other character and really missed my warhorn for fast group running. I was using a staff at the time, which does have a similar ability (Windborn Speed), but the cooldown is 30 seconds and has a much smaller radius, whereas the warrior's buff (Charge) is with only 20s CD, 1200 radius and removes conditions, which practically allowed me and my friend to have Speed buff on us at all times when running between objectives.
Melee will always have a tough time fighting ranged, up until the point they get within range.
2 poorly played characters will always come down to whoever get's the most hits in, usually ranged against melee is a free kill.
A well played melee however will dominate lightly armoured casters by using their charge/teleport abilities, stuns and line of sight obstacles. All you need do is look at the rogues/warriors/DK's in WoW to see how things can be done. I've seen video's of hammer warriors knocking other classes around like skittles. I think it's WAY too early to be talking about balance issues, let's see how the classes perform with some skilled players behind the wheel.
Not saying the beta testers aren't skilled or anything but 2 weekends of playing with a month break in the middle isn't anywhere near enough time to become good, competent maybe. How many players can claim they know a class inside and out after 4 days. Sorry to burst anyones bubble but nobody has played enough yet to claim balance issues.
On topic: Harry Potter and Legolas would be my guess
Ranger and Mage archtypes are popular throughout the genre.
Someone makes a <Insert Class Here> is OP video and everyone wants one.
u notice elementalist and rangers the most for a reason
elementalist = Fire Water Air and earth spells all around are noticiable...
rangers = animals around? oh yeah
from far away u see a armored garr....is a guardian ? warrior?
necros = well the spell of necros are more subtle than ele :S , the aoes for example...a rain of fire vs random circle on the ground.
and eles are far from OP , in WvWvW meh staff is ok....for aoe , but are doing really nothing than moving the dedfenders on the wall....u arent killing them for sure lol...
and melee vs ranged? what????????????
while warrior ranged needs love....
thief dual pistols are amazing
guardian isnt bad (and will get more ranged love )
hell my ele was using dagger / dagger in PvP and i was having a blast.... FULL MELEE! noooooo u are a ranged..
eles/rangers arent RANGED CLASSES
warriors / guardians /thiefs arent MELEE CLASSES
get this out your head already ...Gw2 is different!
Play a Guardian, then play an Ele, absolutely night and day in complexity and gameplay alone.
Here's the problem though: What we end up with is an entire army trying to be artillery. Refer to trench warfare ala WWI+II. ground troops sat on their asses for months, while artillery on each side turned the ground between them into no man's land. And NOTHING got done. It turned battles into protracted hellholes where your biggest threat was the constant damp in the trenches making your feet rot.
That's not a scenario I want to see in WvW.
To address a second point, I get that you personally would enjoy plasting teh walls from range rather then smacking the hell out of them in melee and dropping buffs. That's fine. But do we really want a game where everyone goes for the same role? I think there's no reason we can't have viable ranged and melee in wvw right now, but it requires several things:
1) Players need to quit being afraid of melee.
2) Ranged players need to focus less on the door and more on the defenders. I've seen WvW runs where NO ONE attacked the defenders on the walls, and they wondered why they kept getting beaten. They actually griped in /squad that the solution to this was to make doors easier to kill!
3) Killing people in WvW MATTERS. Every player that dies has to run, often a good distance, to get back in the action. Take them out, get them killed, patrol the roads and keep them from getting back into base. Once again, the job of melee. I cannot tell you how many times I walked through an entire field of enemy attackers to waltz into my own team's gate unharmed. Because all they focus on is the door. Kill the players first. THEN the door.
On a third note, allow me to assure you ranged does not beat melee in 1v1. As a melee mesmer I killed plenty of rangers and eles. And poor, sorry engineers. If you don't know how to play one of those right, 1v1 is NOT the place for you. Necros are a pain though, takes forever to burn them down. Better to lock them down and wait for them to run out of lifeforce.
As a guardian who focused on CC and pounce, jumping towards my target type of abilities all I can say is I am quite pleased with how many elementalists are out there lol.
Even without the jumping skills... eles and rangers couldn't kill me before I got in on them and then most panicked because of the old inccorect mentality of "I'm a ranged DPS class and a melee is on me, i need to run".
Once players break the old habits tactics might have to change which brings in new excitement.
I almost always play a ranger first in any game that has them, i usually keep away from the robed squishy wizard types like the plague but i find the elementalist in GW2 to be a real blast (literally) to play, then again i like every class in the game...
Playing GW2..
My favorite thing in this game so far was teleporting onto the walls as a Guardian and punting people off towards my army outside.
Range in GW2 is win in a lot of areas. Granted melee is awesome in close quaters or if and when they do get up close but they have to get there. Elementalists have great range ST and AoE and when melee get close, huge close range DPS. I personally think there is some balance problems but not so bad that they cant be fixed. I say roll the class you enjoy playing and that way you dont get upset when you dont think your class is not OP any more.
Not sure if you played the most recent build of the game or not but ranged damage and movement speed was reduced quite a bit. Not siege stuff, mind you. If a castle has arrowcarts etc. your crew should be building counter siege equipment to take them down (catapults, etc). Not running wildly against the castle doors for no reason.
Ranged does practically zero damage in comparison to melee.
I'm not sure how anyone got the idea that running up to a castle wall with a sword in hand was going to do a whole lot. In the beginning of sieging any castle worth any weight at all you want to stand back and protect your siege equipment that you should have. If you don't itll be a long siege of you throwing your lifeless body against the castle doors.
I'm also not sure who's been saying that ranged is better than melee at all. The two go pretty seemlessly together. Usually you start a fight with your ranged weapon out and try to slow or cripple while dodging your oponents and doing damage. After crippling you'll either close the distance or try to gain some more. In general kiting doesn't really stick as a long term strategy in this game though. PvE mobs now target characters who attempt to stay ranged for a certain periode of time and in WvWvW attempting to kite someone will usually just get you killed. Characters attempting to stay completely at range now seem to get special attention from most players and get shut down mercilessly. Sense melee run faster than ranged its pretty easy to close distance as well unless your playing against someone who is really struggling and can't dodge the cripples and knockbacks or can't just run in a straight line constantly.
Most character who tried to kite me I just ran directly at them, used my leap and they generally died with ease as I would pull out my melee weapons before them and get the jump on doing melee damage, which is about 3x as much as ranged with any weapon loadout.
Instead of cranking up healing or something people could just act smarter during sieges. If your a melee oriented character the first part of your siege should be devoted to protecting the siege equipment your team has brought to destroy the other teams (if they have them) or to take down a gate/wall.
It has nothing to do with melee being underpowered during sieges. Believe me, they play a vital role once a breach is made and in protecting siege equipment before-hand. It has everything to do with logic.
There are archers and thieves with guns standing on top of a wall armed with arrow-shooting cannons and burning oil with a gate. So what exactly did you expect a guy with a sword was gonna do once he waltzed his way up there? Jump two stories up to land on the wall? Punch a hole through the gate? Ranged isn't exactly useful before a breach either. Sure you can deal a tiny bit of damage to the defenders on the wall but once you get them down to half health they will just take two steps backwards and heal.
Gotta have siege equipment unless your playing against a very poorly organized group.
http://www.wix.com/guardiansofthegarter/home
Trying to bust down a gate with your weapons isn't supposed to be fun, really. The gates are meant to be taken down with siege equipment. Guardians provide bubbles and such while rams do their thing and thats the melee approach. Trebuchets are more the ranged approach. Either way works though as long as you have a good team.
You shouldn't be trying to take down a fortified tower/castle unless you have siege equipment though. Its one of my biggest pet pieves to see people complain about how long it takes to destroy a gate then to find out they were trying to punch it down.
In that time they, undoubtably, wasted trying to punch a hole through stone a few people could have held the line while the rest got some rams or equipment in general. Why you would want to sit there for a half hour edging away at a gate is beyond me. People do it though. Or try to. Me and my guild held a tower as seafarers rest for a good while and deterred about 30+ people away from our keep with only about 6 of us. We had put up arrocarts and oil. Instead of going back to get any equipment the whole mob just mindlessly threw themselves into our killing field. They did minimal damage to our gate and the siege went on for an extremely long time. They would have anhialated us if someone was smart enough to pool some resources and by even one tribuchet.
We would have been forced to engage them in melee to try to destroy it and would have failed miserably for sure (6 vs. 30? lol).
http://www.wix.com/guardiansofthegarter/home
I made a thief which I never really play in mmo's because I usually dont have any fun with them and it was propably the most fun ive had playing an mmo since SWG. As soon as I got dual wielding pistols and daggers it was on like donkey kong, by far the funnest class ive tried in the game so far which is VERY surprising to me.
[not replying to F. directly but using the above for context]
Have I misunderstood something completely when I think that getting the doors down is only one phase of one part of WvWvW? Wouldn't melee will be quite useul e.g. in cleaning up the walls and courtyards of those ranged weaklings after you bring down the door with your siege weapons (not with your pesky swords)?
EDIT: Although I do hope that any group attacking the keep I happen to be defending are full of melees hitting on the door in a nice and tight 5x5 meter package.
I played theif,necro and ranger. Thats all i got the chance to play. Havent been a big fan of caster classes in games. Theif was my favorite, the get in get out play with dagger and pistol was to much fun. Necro was pretty cool qand i gave up on ranger,the pet was so buggy it seemed pointless to play with it,stupid pet would rarely attack. I will be for sure playing theif as my main,but im gonna give some of the other classes a try to see if they change my mind next BWE.