Too Much Anti-Melee?

This may just be a rant, but I've encountered more trouble doing any damage with a warrior, assassin, or dervish simply because of these skills.

Guardian
Insideous Parasite
Empathy
Spoil Victor
Spiteful Spirit
Whirling Defense
Lightning Reflexes
Dodge
Aegis
Blinding Flash
Blinding Surge
Natural Stride
Distortion
Magnetic Aura
Sliver Armor
Critical Defenses
Flashing Blades
Ward of Melee
Shroud of Darkness
Weapon of Warding
Mirage Cloak
etc.

My rant is that these skills should be nerfed, granted, I use them too. However, when it comes to being a caster, ranger, or paragon, I seem to kill a lot easier.

Blinding Surge I can understand, it's an elite, I think having infinite blind can be fair, however, shouldn't there be a little penalty? A warrior usually doesn't have condition removal, and if you do, you simply get yelled at for it (for being a W/Mo, for example) and even if you DO bring it, the cooldown clock on Blinding Surge makes it easy. Perhaps, make it so the same target can't be blinded more than once or twice in a row? Saying the thing should cause exhaustion is out of the question, giving it a higher energy gives it no point, that sort of thing.

Faintedheartedness. This skill is just pure...well, it's friggin' Satan condensed into a skill! The time it lasts on you seems like an eternity, 50% slowdown on your attack speed, not to mention it can be quickly recharged for another use, and on top of that, enjoy your degeneration! My suggestion? I like the idea of the skill, but instead of a timer, can we make it an amount of attacks that have slowed 50%? And not high either, considering that within a 20 second time frame, a warrior can dish out an attack every 1 1/3 seconds or so, making it like, 15. With the 50%, it's reduced to about 7-8 attacks every 20 seconds. You're sure to kill things at that rate....but, still? Make it 2...9 attacks slowed with 50%, while having the degeneration. 9 attacks, if balanced out, stretches out to the normal thing, and if you want to get that high, then spend the costings to get up to 16 on your curses to do it.

Insideous Parasite, just does too much damage. Empathy is basically the same thing, except this one steals health. Again, empathy can last over time, but this one should be like Vengeful weapon, vampiric strike, etc. Lasts a few attacks considering the amount it heals per attack.

Spoil Victor. As a warrior with around 600 health, you're screwed. Just screwed. End of discussion.

Random Arenas, while I know it's possible, is a lot harder without healing. Everyone should have healing, but not everyone is going to have hex removal or condition removal.

Maybe you don't agree with me, but if you think about it, if you don't play a melee class, how easy it is to screw over a melee class, and that person has no defenses.

Warrior's Cunning doesn't seem worth the cost to use it, not to mention the skill doesn't last very long.

Expose Defenses keeps getting nerfed further, and further down the time period, as the cost remains at 10.

Can we do something about this? Also, sword attacks on warriors. How many of them are actually useful? Not very many. How many of you use Steelfang Slash? My suggestion? Alter the damage, and give a few skills the chance to hit through blocking. Like a 20% chance of hitting through block, that sort of thing. Also, make certain skills hit through blind. Like, they automatically hit. Final Thrust perhaps? Maybe it's too much, but what about Hundred Blades. Do you see where you swing that sword? You're like a crazy ballerina with a blade going in all sorts of crazy directions. How can you not hit your opponent? Give that a 30% of going through blocking? Or perhaps, just make it so it's one of those lovely skills that just hit even if you have blind?

How about a blind removal skill that activates as fast as a stance? So the blind is just gone, while chasing your opponent down. No need to stop, and let them escape even further.

When I play a ranger, warriors sometimes can never touch me. I just blind them, and throw up one of my many defenses. On top of that, I'm poisoning them, and interupting just about every move they make. They just lost all hope of succeeding.

A theory of mine? Spellsins (assassins using the Signet of Judgement, dancing daggers, etc). So many pop-up, and why may you ask? Well, in my opinion, a blade build kills a lot more quicker, however, spellsins aren't affected by blocking, empathy, insideous parasite, blind, etc. All those badboy protectors, now get demolished away.

Conclusion?

1) More skills be looked at to give melee characters some advantage.
2) Anti-melee skills be given a little more penalty, whether it be energy, cooldown, or simply what the effect of the skill is.

I went through seven different matches in the Random Arenas. None of them, I was supported by a healer of any kind. I never once was able to kill a person, and no, it's not because I'm bad with a warrior. I've been one for all my 20 months of playing this game. I was just bombarded to Hell with all the anti-melee stuff. That's why I came here with this complaint/rant/suggestion. A team doesn't even need melee anymore to succeed and get kills. The only way melee can work, is usually if they team up, or got that one 'BA' monk on their side. I'm sure others agree, and I'm sure those who enjoy pummelling melee characters will dissagree.

Give it a thought as if you were on the opposition here, the one suffering the effects, not the one dishing them out. If you don't have a hard time killing things, explain why. "Because I rock," or "because the other players are dumb and don't bring anti-melee" isn't really a reason. Monks, seriously are ftw. W/Mo's aren't, and I refuse to demote myself to play this game and have a chance.

Do I need to give you a list of the anti spellcasting skills to even this out or did you just not look them up?

How about a Spell that removes Dazed with no activation time so I don't get inturupted using it? Blinding is nothing.

How about a few more spells in Soul Reaping? Seriously, they're called "Necromancers". The Soul Reaping attribute has the least number of skills in all attributes of the game. It's pathetic. Swordsmanship is fine... seriously, the elites in swordsmanship synergize so well with the rest of the skills it's not even funny. If you can't find a good swordsmanship build, you need to buy a few tomes.

As for your last paragraph:

I learn to Synergize skills in all attributes of of the warrior, assasin, and Dervish. I don't have a hard time on my warrior. I inflict good amounts of damage, many conditions, and take a real beating doing it in PvP and PvE alike. If you seriously cannot find a way to make a warrior work for you, you shouldn't be playing that class ever.


Ps: As for your blocking problem, I perscribe Wild Blow. Synergizes Well with "For Great Justice". Imagine that. No way to inturupt or remove shouts, huh?

Use it.

Wow umm hmm you have problems killing quickly with a dervish and an assassin because of those bupkiss anti melee spells? I think you need to prioritize your targets better. If I have some prot monk class monster buffing the hell out of the party guess who I go after first. Why? Because they have paper armor and have usually just spent most of their spells on someone else meaning they are waiting for a recharge. Assassin it's done in not time since they spike like crazy but a dervish can pretty much mow them down in short order. After that the rest of the mobs fall with ease.

Even with all the anti-melee, warriors can provide great pressure/spike, assassins can spike a target in a matter of seconds alone, and dervishes can provide great pressure/spike. Paragons can deal some nice damage and provide unremovable support for their party. Rangers can deal quite a few conditions, alright damage and are great at interrupts. Nerfing the anti-melee skills would make physicals more powerful then they already are. You're also overlooking the fact that all the anti-melee skills you've listed can be countered.

Besides, alot of your list is barely used.

Yes, but I mostly use warrior. As for the protection monk, doesn't help if they spam guardian every few seconds.

About all of that list was used in the seven matches I was in. Some were off the top of my head, such as Mirage Cloak and Magnetic Aura.

More than half of the skills you listed will be rarely seen outside of RA/AB. RA and AB are horrible places to try to prove a point.

Magnetic Aura lasts a short time and has a huge recharge time. It's not over powered at all.

Mirage Cloak costs mundo energy to keep up. Not to mention it's only a 50% chance to block. The skill is balenced fairly.

Every measure has a countermeasure; every action a reaction. If certain skills are causing you hassle, the game offers plenty of other skills that can be used to counter them; but don't take it on yourself to counter everything personally (this is a team based game after all, and you will always have allies who can do things that you might not be able to do)

urrite dodge ownz melee characters all them arrow doggin' skillz > my warrior

Considering that if you don't have one of those skills, a physical is going to rip you to pieces in about 3 seconds, I think things are balanced.

Sure. Just nerf melee first. To about 20% of they are right now.

These counters exist for a reason.

And this is not it.

You've been playing for 20 months, and haven't come to the conclusion that W/Mos aren't necessarily the best combination?

Please don't say there's a mending or healing hands on your bar.

Wrong. Everyone in RA is so heavily anti-melee because they are so insanely dangerous. Against a damage caster, prot spirit, and you'll take 10+ seconds to kill someone. Against a sin, you have about 3 seconds to live, less if not immediately protted/countered. Although they did get nerfed.

That conclusion came to me a long time ago. Only when I'm using the old school Paladin premade-build.

What I'm saying those, is what chance does a warrior stand against all these things when you can't hit a single thing. We're not talking about team play, more solo play. There's all these things to stop warriors, assassins, and dervishes from hitting their targets, but like 'there's a counter to everything,' name a single warrior skill that counters blind.

Plague touch (funny against throw dirt), antidote signet, mending touch, ... I don't really know which ones are popular today.

BTW: name elementalist skill that counters dazed. See the problem?

Mending touch, remedy signet, sight beyond sight.

What do I win?

Umm.. Dodge blocks against projectiles. Lol.

Explain what you should do to keep yourself alive from Spiteful Spirit, Empathy, Insideous Parasite, and Faintedheartedness....

Holy veil, or just accept that their rock beat your scissors.

Simple. Stop attacking. You won't be doing damage, but neither will the necro/mesmer, who will be spending energy to cast those hexes. Sit there and spam healing signet/ask for hex removal from a monk. You'll be at full health for zero energy, while the hexer will have wasted a considerable amount of energy to hex you and do zero damage. Then, once the casters energy pool is low, you can destroy them with ease.
Only newbies kill themselves from hexes like that (which is why I use them a lot in RA/AB).


Keep in mind that NO build can have a counter to EVERYTHING. That is what makes things balanced. If you bring hex removal, a guy might cast blind on you. Bring a stance removal skill like wild blow, and a guy might use a block enchantment.
Same thing is true with casters though. Replace the word "blind" with "daze." Empathy with backfire. Hexes, enchantments, and conditions can cut both ways.

I list skills that noone really uses from OP list: Magnetic aura, sliver armor, Shroud of darkness but it's not it's real name (it's distress?), Mirage cloak.
And if you see flashing blades or crit defenses, change your target.
SS, empahty or other damaging thing isn't really problem unless you play RA or something like that. When i play warrior, only thing i dislike is that endless blockweb. If blockweb is removed, warriors rape the whole game unless you take 2-3 bsurges who spam it.

Yeah, pretty much. There may be an increased amount of melee hate than any other kind of 'hate,' but that is because melee is just so gosh darned powerful as it is.

have a monk use hex removals

I've been asking for this for a while now. You should be immune to conditions after they are removed for a certain amount of time. Kind of like how it works with Disease spreading through the party: If you and the player next to you are diseased, and yours wears off, you can't instantly catch it again from the same player, but after 5-10 seconds, you can. The cost and amount of skills to shutdown melee outweighs the caster skills. The very few that can daze can mostly be dodged by kiting. You can't kite blind. Weakness partially shuts down most melee into small, insignificant damage, whereas it barely effects casters.

Warrior can poorly counter hexes and condition, you're right. But you seem to have forgotten that Guild Wars is a team game. The game isn't balanced based on 1v1 matches, and it's not balanced based on RA/AB.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lady Raenef Explain what you should do to keep yourself alive from Spiteful Spirit, Empathy, Insideous Parasite, and Faintedheartedness....

[skill]Purge Signet[/skill]

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Yeah.

I shortened the list for you. Pretty much everything there except Ward Against Melee is counterable if you don't epifail.

Of course a Warrior would be destroyed by an anti-melee caster. The problem is Guild Wars is NOT a solo game and thus 1v1 pairing are stupid as there is always the perfect counter. To look at anti-melee skills you must look at them in a team build environment.

Yes, a team full of anti-casters can stop all melee, but that in itself is a melee advantage. It is already "shutting down" most of the opposing team by forcing them to run anti-melee allowing the opposing team to be weak in other fields.

PS. Look at this at least in a TA or HA setting. RA is ftl and AB is PvE

Melee damage unchecked destroys everything. All the anti-melee stuff in the game just barely keeps physicals in-line in PvP.

You actually loose since they are not warrior skills.

So I read bits and pieces of the op's post. Out of the list of skills listed six are a common use in gvg, and nine can be found in ra/ta/ha/hb. I didn't bother to read any other replies (this thread reads fail from the start so I just wanted to add my two cents and be on) so here is my response/question.

First my response, no it isn't an over excessive amount of anti-melee, as stated by someone else in the thread there is plenty of counters to spells (they're called interrupts from my understanding). Use them, hell abuse them thats why they're there. Conditions/Hexes can be removed, enchants can be shattered/rended/stripped, and even passive bs defense stances can be taken care of.

So my question is, if a maximum (off that short list) of 9 skills in pvp are "trouble", the rest must be "trouble" in pve, and since no one cares about pve I don't see any real problems.

/end of 2 cents

Secondaries are in the game for a reason. Skills have been balanced for secondary use.

Too many physicals.

5 casters, 5 physicals

/agree

Yes, I can totally wipe the floor with my elementalist or my mesmer. But I can also do it with my warrior and my dervish.

Sometimes on a warrior it helps to not run out of the casting range of your own backline, so they can buff you and debuff your targets just like the enemy casters are buffing your targets and debuffing you.

This one I call to not a problem with the classes, but with the play of them. Learn the role of the class, and play it. In Guild Wars nobody is the one man show. This isn't about the other 7 people on your team standing at the gate and going -wow, you're so 1337- Everyone has a role, and if you make sure the rest of your team can perform theirs, you will find yourself more effective in yours.

Be that as it may the OP's exact quote was:

Not name a secondary skill that can counter blind.

Krat

So, an ele can go all angsty and say "Name a single ele skill that removes daze."

Physical attackers are still the predominant form of damage dealers in PvP. Despite all the many skills to shut them down.

These skills exist for this very reason. That there is a lot of anti-warrior hate tells us something how dangerous they are if nobody stops them cold.

The same is true in PvE. Your warrior will have to adjust to the situation and still relies on his team - you cannot remove hexes, conditions and whatever nonstop and keep on attacking.

You want an easier time bashing mindless mobs, but if you remove or reduce all the anti-melee counters you mentioned, those mobs will bash you badly, and even worse in hard mode.

And for RA, just play an Elementalist or Necro or whatever and see what happens to you DESPITE all the many anti-warrior counters. Warriors kill stuff nevertheless.

No physical attacker likes getting blinded, but you will have to learn to deal with that, and there are many ways. Mending Touch, Sight Beyond Sight, Plague Touch, causing conditions to the enemy yourself or pinging your monk that you are in trouble.

This is part of the game. Do not make it sound as if casters would wipe the floor with warriors, this is far from reality.

The reason why there are loads of anti-melee counters is because a good warrior unleashed will rape everything

It's sad there are so many warriors in the game giving the few percent that are somewhat decent a bad name.

That is why you fail.
- Yoda.

The OP may want warrior skill. But meanwhile, everyone else is effectively using secondary profession to gain the upper edge.

In PvP it's about outsmarting the other players - not grind mindless mobs with fixed skill bars.

All I'll say about melee (RA/AB/the scrub pvp) is this - there is always at least one stance (non-monk skill) on my monk bar for defense against sins and warriors. Without it, I'm sitting duck. All the monk skills there are simply don't provide adequate self-defense. If a monk must bring two /A skills against melee - shouldn't warrior bring at least something against their own shutdown?

Every player should bring self-defense against their classes' greatest bane.

These should be known by all players:

-Whatever builds you use in AB does not mean it works for PvP. Why? Because I can get more kill than all my team members combined as a 55 SOJ.

-GW is a team game, which means, you shouldn't try to do everything. That is why it is important to set up a good team before the match.

-PvP is not PvE. So don't bring a tanking build and expect all the noobs to hit you unless it is AB.

-You have a secondary profession. USE IT.

-Unless it is in AB or you are a monk, BRING A REZ.

-Builds that work in 1v1 proves NOTHING.

-Just because your build worked in one match doesn't mean crap.

The game is essentially a large game of RPS. Don't tell me that rock should be able to beat paper and scissors.