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Is it me or does melee sucks?
thekid1
Member UncommonPosts: 789
Thank god I choose Ranger because I think ranged in this game is brilliant.
As soon as an enemy is heading towards me I have plenty of time to think of something.
If he's getting near and I'm out of specials and energy I can still easily evade him while still shooting him.
I held out for 5 minutes against a enemy twice my level which could kill me in one hit.
I also have a sword..
I can't stand it and don't understand how you can evade being while being so close.
I have this standard attack (slot 1) which is a combo and double tapping to do a roll simply does not work half the time so I get hit. Even if it did work, I would still have to pay EXTREMELY attention to when the enemy is facing me or is about to strike. None of this realy matters when playing ranged.
When playign ranged:
-Do not let the enemy get close. This doesn't work with melee because you have to be clsoe to hit him.
- If the enemy is close, run, evade whatever like a mad man, your shots will still hit. This doesn't work with melee because you have to face the enemy and be close to it.
So explain melee to me because I would like to use my sword once in a while and get close and personal.
Comments
works fine for my thief.
stay close, use evasive moves as soon the enemy start to use any kind of skill but his "white attack"
tho i dont wanna say i dont like my pistols either :P
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
First advice I can give is disable the "double tap" dodge and bind dodge to a hotkey. It'll always work then.
Second advice is to watch the "tells" the mobs give when they're about to attack. Many of them are pretty obvious and you'll find yourself dodging randomly less, and dodging actual attacks more (you'll see that EVADE message).
Melee is also more powerful with more people around you. You get the advantage of melee (more damage) and not the weakness (getting hit back).
With an up to date weapon in hand and built properly, you can often just bully mobs and kill them outright with melee by just strafing around them attacking with your big moves. Anything that uses blind in PVE is also very effective, due to mobs relatively low attack speeds. You can blind a mob and then stand in their face for quite a while pummeling them, while they wind up slowly...attack (which misses because of blind) then have to wind up slowly to attack again before you even have to consider moving.
Melee is EXTREMEMLY powerful in this game.
I have dodge bind to a hotkey (mouse 4) but it stil ldoesn't work with my sword skill. Perhaps a bug.
I did notice melee seems to do more damage, probably to negate the fact it is harder to dodge.
I will try out your advice.
I hate that too. Thing is, the game is actually making a series of attacks in a chain and that's why you're 'dancing.' It's SLASH (damage), KICK (damage + cripple), LEAP (damage, buffs pet with might).
To get out of this auto-chain, you can reset auto attack to skill 4 or 5 (well, 2-5 but you really don't want to use 2 or 3). This will help keep you out of the chain as you will have to manually activate each slash.
But, even with auto-attack on #1 you still have options that can help you move in combat. The chain ends when you are interrupted by an enemy or you interrupt it with your own abilities. So don't hesitate to use the hornet sting and snake strike skills unless you're by a cliff.... Trust me on this cliff advice (which is why you don't auto-attack #2 or #3). It's not pretty. And drop your traps if you selected them (7) & (8), utility skills also interrupt auto-attacks.
Personally, though, I use the two-handed sword. But I use the two-handed sword on all my melee characters (don't have a thief yet).
EDIT:
As for the rest... You need to learn to strafe and move. I don't even tab-target, though the game will sometimes auto-target when I'm hitting things. But on my end, I use pure action-combat, area-of-swing melee attacks. If your weapon goes through the hit box, you score a hit.
It's 'float like a butterfly, sting like bee' in this game. You go toe-to-toe, you're gonna get knocked out.
If WoW was released today even in its' entirety it would be f2p in 3 months.
Why is it still such a big deal?
Probably good advice.
I noticed jsut now lookign at all the skills and weapons the sword is really the only (one handed) melee weapon the ranger has. And the problem is the chain skill is on 1. The one is use as auto attack because it has no cooldown time.
I could do as you adviced but it still would feel awkward and annoying I think. I will stick to the other weapons.
What do you mean you don't tab target? Do you use a controller or something because it's hard enough pressing 1-7 (-10 later on) I can't imagine having to aim manually to..
It is you.
My main is also a thief, I do about the same time with 2 pistols as with sword + dagger. They are effective against different opponents though but I usually change a few times during a longer battle.
The thief is a bit squishier than most other melee classes though so I think melee takes a little longer to master.
Even with my 300 ping I love playing the Norn Warrior with a 2 handed hammer.
I dont need to dodge, the mobs do.
rawwwrrrr
Playing: Darkfall New Dawn (and planning to play Fallout 76)
Favourite games have included: UO, Lineage2, Darkfall, Lotro, Baldur's Gate, SSX, FF7 and yes the original Wizardry on an Apple IIe
As long as u move around the enemy whilst attacking at all times then you can pretty much get out of the way of almost any attack coming your ur way.
I use melee guardian at all times btw.
Looking forward to EQL and EQN.
Part of you problem is using the ranger main hand sword on auto attack. It leaps you forward and actually breaks your short range kiting and dodge.
If you want to get good at melee DO NOT USE THE RANGER MAIN HAND SWORD.
Maybe try it later, but play some other weapon to get used it. I am quite good at melee fighting and I find that sword just plain awful.
For elusivity, try thief main hand sword. Its not great damage but it gives some interesting movement abilities to give some ideas. Or possibly try mesmer sword/pistol to give some idea, but mesmer is not a full on melee class.
For a tougher apparoch try warrior or guardian with a shield and sword or mace. Or go full on DPS and try greatsword. Ranger can also use greatsword, but its not as good as it was.
Edit: I am not saying ranger maind hand sword is bad. Its just not something a beginner should use.
Few things.
1) Ranged is 'easier'. That doesn't make it better, it just means it has a much lower skill cap.
2) I would strongly suggest taking off 'double-tap to dodge' and binding an actual 'dodge key'. It's much easier, and much more reliable.
3) Melee is MUCH stronger than ranged. This is precicely because of it having a higher skill-cap, because you have to constantly dodge in & out of range as a melee class. However, once you get that figured out, you can do multiple times as much damage as a ranged character. Melee has much higher burst potential, and attack much faster as well.
*** The primary thing you seem to be misunderstanding is this ***
- If the enemy is close, run, evade whatever like a mad man, your shots will still hit. This doesn't work with melee because you have to face the enemy and be close to it.
While this makes senese, it also forgets a key aspect of melee combat. You don't always have to be hitting your target every second to do good damage as melee.
You have weapon swapping. You have dodge. You have skills that have built in evasion (like the ranger's sword #2 & 3 skills). Melee is just as much about not getting hit, as it is about getting up close and laying in some damage. If you are taking too much damage it's perfectly fine to run back out of range, get your health back up, etc. (this is also where proper use of your skills helps, as if you spam an evasion skill for damage, it won't be available if you need to dodge out of the way of a big attack)
The more practice with this, the less time you'll spend outside of range getting your health back up. RIght now it just sounds like you're scared to swim in the deep end, and thus instead of warming yourself upto it, you've decided the shallow end is better.
This pretty much says it all. Dont get why people keep talking like its some kind of real stratagy involved.
Not bad advice.
I would argue, though, that if he's trying to get better at melee, the Warrior is probably the best class for himto get his feet-wet with.
Guardians are a bit on the 'too easy' side, and I don't think you really learn much about proper melee combat while playing one. They are more about boons, and defense, rather juggling offense & defense efficiently.
Warrior, on the other hand, is very straight forward. They have a decent amount of survivability (heavy armor, shields, stuns), without all the 2ndary mechanics classes like the thief have (built in dodges, blinds, etc.). It's also more direct, so it's easier to tell when you've screwed up, vs. a class like the thief where it's easy to end up just dodging around all over the place and find out you're dead by the end of it. With warrior you're either doing the hitting, getting hit, or kiting around waiting for an opening.
If he doesn't want to try a new class, the Ranger's Greatsword is also fairly direct, and decent for practicing melee.
Meele doesn't suck. People are so used to playing Meele in former MMOs that they aren't used to it.
Take for example this boss: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NWdjb8xlKI
Now if you've ever fought this boss, you'd think this boss would be impossible to beat with just 2 people. But last night we did just that. With me playing the warrior and "tanking" him. I put quotes around tanking because it wasn't conventional tanking where you just soak damage and keep argo.
I was dodging every time he slams his foot down and placing banners. The one other person who was attacking him was safely dpsing him from a distance. Took us a good 40 minutes to kill him.
My point? Meele doesn't suck. If both of us had tried to range him it would've been much more difficult as he would've chased us down/reset (which happened before in another zone!). You just need to learn how to play meele. Not to mention that some bosses you simply can't range them or stay at range distance. *cough* certain branded spider queen in level 50-60 zone*
I'm sticking with my Ranger for now but if I make a second character I will make a Warrior.
Thanks everybody, guess the one handed Ranger sword combined with autoattack made melee look sucky.
(And I still find it annoying they made skill nr1 a combo)
Will try the two handed sword to get a feel for melee.
Really depends on how good you are w/ melee & knowing the boss mobs.
I've meleed in zerg fights quite a few times, and there's often other people in melee range as well. You also don't usually get insta gibbed unless you get hit by one of the bosses' big attacks. (which are all telegraphed)
There are some exceptions to this (i.e. Fire Elemental in the asuran zone), but in most cases it's really not that bad once you know what you're doing. I've gone toe-toe against the flame shaman with 20 other people dancing around as well. Just takes getting used to knowing when to back away, and when it's safe to charge back in.
If you play a character that does melee, have your second weapon set as ranged. Especially for WvW, so you can fire from battlements etc..
E.g. on my aura warrior I use bow and hammer
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Melee is fine if you have someone who knows what theyre doing with you. By that I mean people who properly use fields to heal, weaken, and blind enemies while buffing you. See fire? Leap over it and get a fire shield. See ice? Do the same. See water? Look at where the ranged people are firing and hit that to get a HoT. Or just use your burst ability and get some aoe heals. Etc etc.
Theres a specific timing to attacks too, you dont need to always guess. I dont know exactly how long but I know its the same length of time as 1 full combo and 3 hits from a dagger thief. If you see it pause and charge, get ready to dodge away and start shooting or blind/interrupt. Its a lot harder in melee but if you know what youre doing, youll survive.
Edit : I hate how people fight that asura fire elemental. They camp out by the bridge and effectively block the path unless youre really patient/ lucky enough to get inside. And when you do, you are usually alone fighting a bunch of elementals WHILE trying to dodge the god forsaken fire pits. I suggest use a dodge slot skill so you can dodge while knocked down and hopefully survive.
Edit 2 :
Also I play a hunter mostly in melee with a great sword or 1h sword + warhorn. The buff is awesome for your pet especially with max stacks masters bond @_@
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