Melee Caster Weapons

doesn't make sense to me. How does work here decent?
If I'm only going to attack in melee I would bring a sword/axe because they attack faster.

You cannot send your monks to attack the enemy, it will stop them from healing it takes time to run to the target, it takes time to swing your attack - no, I'd rather bring swords on my monk if I want to deal damage...

I play warrior quite often and the auto target feature is very helpful. Of course I need to be aware where I'm standing and who is going to block me - but nevertheless the auto target feature saves me a lot of time, especially when the enemy is running.

your order argument is flawed, because you can do it nowadays with more power (swords swing faster) and you don't do it - because you don't want your monks in the frontline and be distracted from healing.

If the orders thing is really such a huge problem, then just make the melee weapons do the same damage type as the wands of the same attribute. Just put the same little swirly colors around the daggers or epees or whatever and say they're magical. Easy.

You may be right, but you only get one or the other the way it is. You get full damage if you stay with Staff/Wand on a caster team, this is important for non-spike builds. You get the orders effect if you play with a sword, but get little or no damage. What you are proposing would give casters full damage plus orders at a slightly slower rate than a warrior.

So, no it seems seems my argument is not flawed.

Let's go ahead and add in the upgrades to the Caster Melee Weapons. Do they get faster recharge? Should they? No. They are giving up something for something else, Balance. Welcome to the real world.

Well if you're going to use them in that sense, lets take a look at the other side. Cannot Order be countered the same way as it would if a pathetic IWAY team were using it (as they all are). Aegis, Ward Against Melee, etc. The counters already exist... I don't see the problem. It just depends how extensively you want to make them Melee weapons, but they are balanced in every situation.

Ohh crap we are suddenly talking about counters. Well, ok we can change directions to accomidate your level of comprehension.

The fact of the matter is:

Suddenly, the weapons you propose need counters.




So, I have a question for you. If a character that has your Melee caster weapon has 16 in the attribute that the weapon. Does that character get a damage boost for being over 12 in the attribute?

Do attack speed buffs work the same as they do with current Melee weapons?

everything needs a counter. in this case, they already exist.

and to answer your questions, I would have to look out how wands and staves currently work. It would match them.

I think instead of spending your time trying to think up ways to make the game easier for button pushers, you should master your profession.

You see in the world there are two kinds of people.

Button Pushers- These people may have some idea of what the knob or button they push does, but they put no thought into the process. These people, when fixing stereos, plug things into different things until they get lucky. When they play guild wars, they hit every skill on the barr and hope it works.


Non-Button Pushers- These people investigate the purpose of the button or knob that they press, and only use them when they feel the time is right. These people, when fixing stereos, read the labels (instruction manuls even), and fix the problem because they understand how it operates. When they play Guild Wars, they use skills based on the appropriate time.

I will now ask you which one of these descriptions follows the player skill mentality?

It has nothing to do with button mashing. Please start to read. Thx.

How can less damage than a sword on a caster when using orders be a threat to balance? You already can use this technique and noone is running it because it sucks.

And if you are so scared about orders let the weapon do elemental damage - who cares? You don't want it for damage, you want it for PBAoE or touch skills.

Play a touch ranger and tell me it is already too easy. For example: it is nearly impossible to interrupt using shock, when you don't have a sword equiped.

Look at warriors, they don't have it easy to stay at melee range - and now think about how difficult it is for a touch ranger to stay at melee ranger. It is very very tough. And it don't need to be...

The ignorant and the intelligent?
No, sorry

You have exactly one argument: it will be too easy to play with melee caster weapons - which simple is wrong. Why should a touch ranger have it more difficult than a warrior? Is it balance if you have a hard time just because you are no warrior?

It has _nothing_ to do with pushing a button. It won't help. Look at warriors. Simple pushing buttons don't make you a good warrior, right?

Wholly agreed to the above post.

However, I would make another note to Chev of Hardass...

I highly doubt that attack skills would be for these melee weapons, so stop grinding about how they use this weapon, and just press every skill in their skillbar.

Mashing the button at the target, even if you're a warrior, doesn't help. Clearing up your mind does, though.

I guess it didn't suck when they made Staves upgradeable to physical damage. It didn't suck so much they removed those Staff upgrades from the game



Or a blackout mesmer? It would seem that some skills that are not Warrior skills were really geared to be used with a Warrior primary or secondary.

And those that can do it without crutches will loose thier jobs to less skilled players.

The answer here is, go get a warrior secondary and a weapon. Part of balance is having to give up one thing to gain another.

Hey, why not ask for upgrade stacking? I get tired of switching weapons when I play warrior. So, make my vampiric also sundering, and furious, and cruel, and lightning damage as well.

Fact is, I see people use these skills regularly without the crutches. These people deserve to shine in their ability. Leaving the button mashers at home.

Oh noes! Personal insults. Whatever vague bits of argument you had there have been overshadowed by your lack of maturity. In any case, it's all button pushing to me, because pressing W, A, S, and D isn't a big strain on my mind. I find it much harder to headshot moving targets with a rifle or figure my way through Zelda-esque puzzles. All a battle in Guild Wars is is "button pushing", because of the effect your premeditated game plan has. Builds. Whether you like it or not, the battle is essentially won or lost before you push the enter mission button. Yeah, you can play badly, or the enemy can play badly, but there is very little "twitch" skill present in Guild Wars comparable to that of a FPS - even mesmers and reactive healing monks or other sorts don't present much of a challenge. It's more of a "How fast can I click the button when I see the indicator that I should?" test.

Again, you ignore the premise and that is not to make it easier, although it is a side effect, but to make it reasonable for a caster that requires touch range skills to use his build to the most effect. If you have a melee casting weapon, these builds become more viable to play because it is no longer a huge downfall of having to run into range. You're already there. But most importantly: Twenty Percent. It's a magic little number that allows you to cast faster Twenty Percent of the time or to recharge faster Twenty Percent of the time. This number can make or break a battle when it comes down to two evenly matched teams. So what is the downfall of a melee caster weapon? Well, you get all of the counters to melee, no kiting, and no warrior benefits. Oh boy. Sounds easy and overpowered.


Most of all, it would just be a cool idea and a change of pace which has no balance problems but fits well into one of the many unfilled niches in guild wars.



PS: I have a feeling if the melee staff mod was present now, it would not have been removed. You're forgetting that the beta peroid was the same time that all the missions got nerfed in difficulty down to complete monotony, people were complaining about W/Mo's, and none of the greatly "overpowered" builds we see today were present.

Do I need to draw you a picture?

OK, here you go

This means that you have not mastered your profession.


If it is so easy, then you do not need a buff.

Have you ever played Guild Wars? Won or lost as soon as you hit enter mission. Good thing your not in my guild. We try to outplay the people that out-build us.

And where you are at that time, what you choose to use at the time, what the next three-five moves your going to make, and what the next three-five moves the other team is going to make. Anyone who chooses carelessly will get beat by anyone thinking about what they are doing.

To a player that is using a proper caster weapon, this would just make it easier. I suspect a monk will object to this heavily.


Cool ideas have a place. The cutting room floor. Great ideas might get implimented.

Have you noticed that they removed most of the incidents of button mashing? Fertile Stacking, Smite, Spirit, Putrid, and Interupt Spaming.


Here's some imaturity for ya!!

Fact is: If you refuse to accept being wrong, you are as smart as George W. Bush.

Now, you wish that any argument I ever had is gone, but the facts are facts. Just because you did not read the parts of my argument that applied to you, you got personally insulted.

Did I insult you, or your idea?

Did I stumble on something?

But he's not wrong, and name-calling won't make him so no matter how hard you try.

boys boys boys stop this pointless bickering there is no point in going about insulting people over a game.

Chev of Hardass stop being a prick and going out of your way to find something wrong with what eveyone says.

Weezer_Blue stop arguing with the prick he will never agree with you.

and also Chev cut the elitist bs there is no point it's a freaking game. in the long run it doesn't matter if your good at it or not and your dam sure not the best because there is no such thing.

You misquoted me, thanks.... the correct quote goes:

No, I am afraid that skipping the lines does not allow you to attempt to remove the fun in that statement.



Thanks for your cool-mindedness. Your ability to see through all the crap allows you to finish this argument only having to call me a prick twice. If there were more people like you on these forums I think all the moderators could just never come back.

/end sarcasm



Let me get this straight to all the listeners. I want to keep the weapons the way they are. I want this because, it gives an advantage to those that play casters with staves and wands an advantage over those that use swords/axes. Having a handicap like, having to think about your placement, deserves some sort of advantage over the player that only pushes a sequence of button.

I do not play caster with PBAoE spells, much. However, I have a friend that just started getting into PvP and has aquired rank 2 going to the hall with me 2 times. He may be new, but he is able to concentrate on when using aftershock it most valueable. This is a skill. It is developed by practice. Those that have practiced this skill to the point that they feel they are good at it will loose out by this proposed upgrade by being overwhelmed by people playing their role, but not having the same level of ability.


Wow, thanks. I didn't know you felt that highly of me I am not the best at this game. I am better than many people at it. I am working on the skills to be the best, but that is a road that never ends. I feel that to be good at something, you have to work for it. If they removed the player skill to the point that this game turns into a series of sequential button pushing, I would quit.

And no, it doesn't matter if I am good at this game or not, in real life. In game, having the skills (gaming, not just being UAS) required to play means more than anything. If I am choosing a player, I will choose the player that I have seen play with real ability and real skill. So, being good at this game does mean something.

So, if you must, continue to ask for these Melee weapons, but ask for a little more as well.

You could change interupts to "The next time target foe uses a skill that skill is interupted." Then, everyone can be a top notch mesmer/ranger.

Heal skills could be set to heal whenever a player is below a certain health level. Then, everyone would use the exact healing spell that is called for at the time.

Resurection Signet could get the description "While this skill is equiped, any ally that dies will be ressurected automatically."

The list goes on.



I will continue to fight for player skill. That is a rare and valueable commodity. Some players work at it constantly. Some do not. Those that develope "real" player skill deserve an advantage.

If you notice, I was not against this idea, at first. However, as I thought about it, I realized what a disservice this would do to the player skill level as as a whole. Call me Elite, call me a prick, it does not matter to me as long as when I am beat, I am beat by players that beat me with the skill that they developed learning this game and not some loophole that they found within the mechanics of the game.

Edit: Added emphesis to one word, since I feel it may not be strong enough. See "fun"

you know what if your gonna keep this up you can do it with out me. go bad mouth someone els in a different game where bad mouthing is a usful skill.


and oh Chev i call it like i see it you are acting like a prick there for you get called one. learn some tact or learn when to shut your mouth either will work i prefer the later.

This conversation was going long before you started calling people pricks. We don't need you, and we certianly don't need you calling your name calling constructive.

Go bad mouth someone else? How did I badmouth you? You stepped in to call me a prick and I refuse to allow you to do that without reminding you that that is not helpful, or constructive.

Are you really serious?

Work on some tact? Coming from the guy who says "i call it like i see it," wow, really see if you can stick to an approach. You called me a prick, how is that tactful?

Shut my mouth? How about you see your way right out of this conversation, if you have nothing to add to it.


_________________added break line to show that I am not directing this at anyone in particular_______

Perhaps I insulted someone when I said that people with more skill should have and advantage over those without skill. I have not even claimed that someone did not have skill.

I did say that Weezer_Blue needed to spend some more time mastering his profession, after he said he did not know how staves and wands worked in game. That is a fact.

Did I say he had no skill? No. Did I say that I could beat him 1 vs 1, or in GvG, or in Tombs? No. Did I call him a button pusher? No, I said he was trying to make things easier on button pushers.


Get over it. I am not the animal that you wish I was.

Now that's hitting below the belt!


First, I don't have a profession. I play everything equally (except I don't usually play necros... Just not very fun to me). Secondly. Quick! What is the square root of 2970293820394824?! See. You haven't mastered thought. You need to go back to thinking school and take math a few times so you can master it. Nope, no using a calculator to check your answer!

As for being wrong, I can't say anything about being wrong. There is no wrong or right on this issue. It seems to me like you think this addition would be terribly overpowered and yet your evidence is one skill, which I have already explained is no trouble. I didn't mean for the weapons to do melee damage, but for them to have melee range, and work with certain melee spells such as Illusionary (not that I use that piece of crap anyway. 40 damage is rediculously low unless you're attacking extremely quickly).

Finally, to say nothing of the horrible ideas that are in the game, there are plenty of cool and mediocre ideas in the game already. A.Net thought it would be cool if they didn't follow the lame MMO-cliched professions. Hence the implimentation of the Mesmer and trying to make all the classes unique. A.Net also thought that the MMO's were too grind infested, so they tried to reduce it (but failed in many aspects). Perhaps they think this is a cool enough, or even a "great" idea to impliment. Until then, if it ever happens, I'm fine using my trusty PvP smiting staff and half-assedly positioning myself so that my build works. Unfortunatly, it doesn't exactly convey that "wrath of god" feel.

I am all for Scythes, no mater who they may be for

/signed

Glad we can agree on Gee Dub, at least.


Ahh, I see. I played necro for ever. I then switched to Warrior, and only recently switched to Mesmer. I have played all the characters through in PvE, but we are talking about a different game if we want to talk about PvE. Anyway, I tend to sit on a profession till I feel like I can learn nothing about it. Then, I leave it and come back when I think there is something I am missing.

Actually, I am currently enrolled in Calc III. I recieved an A in Calc II over the summer. I am not a master of math, yet. Rest assured that I will be, and some people already think I am.

You have missed my main concern about these Melee range weapons. There is currently an advantage to those that feel like positioning prior to using PBAoE skills is second nature. For these players, it would be a great injustice to level the playing field so that those that have not yet mastered positioning can get positioned properly without the skill that the other players had aquired.

I feel like there is some Skill (as in Orders) unbalancing, but the real issue here is that some players do not need melee weapons to do the job you speak of, and they should be rewarded.

All I can say is: Once you get that "wrath of god" feel (and you may get that next time you play) with your staves and wands, you would feel like all your hard work was for not, if they brought these melee weapons into the game.

There is actually a Scyth already. Or was..... I haven't played PvE except for FoW/UW for a while, so I don't remember. There used to be White Scythes that the Mantle dropped.

......there was my off topic rambling.

but those arent actually scythes. they are just axes with a slightly scythelike blade. The closest thing to a scythe in the game is probably the battlepick

Ah now I got you. I think these players are rewarded by using long range weapons anyway though. They have the ability to kite, and all that stuff where a long range weapon is useful - without actually needing a long range weapon. Some long range spells (I think Smite is one) require you to have a weapon, but don't specify which. It could be a melee weapon or a long range weapon, but the guy with the long ranged weapon will have an advantage.
The most aggrevating thing about melee range is simply slow reaction. I press the button on time, but it may take a second for me to actually move. This may just be lag or something, but it can really throw off your entire combo. Even if the player is automatic, the connection usually isn't.

rofl this thread cracked me up...this guy Chev just won't stop 'elitist' quoting and arguing etc. Well that's the impression I got, anyway.

Not to sound glib, but...generally squishy targets being given melee weapons for close-quarters combat?

The cool factor of a Necro swinging a scythe is basically all that would be good about this idea, I think.

/unsigned

Then should we remove all close range function of those "squishy" targets? Really, what weapon you use has very little effect on how fast you get killed, squishy or not. The entire PvP scene isn't like the randoms where stupid teams full of paladin premades go after the closest target to them, regardless of the fact that it's another mending W/Mo that advertises his "tanking" ability in PvP.

Lets see... We'll get rid of Earthquake Elementalists, Touch Necros, Most Smiters, and Illusionary Mesmers. They're squishy targets in close range. They must be useless right? Unless you're against idiots, the enemies will attack whoever the most dangerous target is, regardless of where he is. Infact, squishy targets at close range might help the squishy targets at long range with aggrevating body blocking.

but if the softy if far away casting spells, when they see someone running at them they can get away easier, when in melee range they are sitting ducks

What are you talking about? Pointing to the Earthquake Eles, Touch Necros, Smiters, IW is pretty irrelevant here. Those are close-quarters spell casters. Spells are not melee. You're suggesting giving spellcasters melee-type weapons (physical damage), and I just don't see the need for it, honestly.

Let's talk IW for a second. It's an enchant in the Mesmer Illusion magic line. Right there, you're already going to need Mesmer as part of your character. What's going to be the second part? In order to use IW to its fullest extent (as in, not being completely useless when it gets stripped/shattered/etc), chances are, a Warrior complement will be your best choice. And what skill attributes do Warriors have? Melee weaponry.

Here's how I see that IW. If you're not playing with a Warrior complement in your IW character, your IW build will suffer for it, because casters can't use melee weapons if they don't have the proper combination. That's the trade-off for getting armor-ignoring IW damage: if your (Elite) enchant of IW gets removed, most of your build just became entirely useless...as it should be.

You base a build on that Mesmer Elite (an Elite whose recharge time is roughly 1/3 longer than its duration, keep in mind), then I really see no reason to give you a melee-based, caster attribute-based weapon. The minute you decided to use a build based on IW, without any melee physical damage back-ups for when that enchant is removed, your damage output should be negated, as far as I'm concerned, because you took that risk by using IW.

Your suggestion flirts with the idea of making every class able to do close-quarters physical combat, and I don't think that's a good idea at all, I'm sorry. If casters were given those types of weapons, what would happen, you think?

Earth Eles/Necro Curses secondaries could be running around with an Earth/Curses-based melee weapon, doing physical damage that rivals a Warrior in some cases (max sword vs max wand, not much damage difference there), with extra defenses against Lightning attacks (viability of Air Spiking vs melee goes out the window), not to mention using defense-boosting Earth magic enchants (there goes physical damage), non-removable Wards (there goes physical damage again), and then on top of that...throwing around a Curses Hex or two (Necro Curses, 'nuff said).

I'm sorry, but that's certainly within the realm of possibility in your suggestion, and truly a recipe for disaster. Most of the above is already possible. I don't think it's wise from a combat perspective to then afford yet another ability.

I still completely disagree with giving casters melee weapons, and I re-iterate my previous post that the "cool factor" should be the only reason a Necro gets to swing a scythe around on the battlefield, and I get the sense that most signing for this suggestion are thinking about the "cool factor," rather than considering the implications in combat.

/still unsigned

if i'm not mistaken we didn't say make it physical my suggestion was a war staff that was melee range i never said to change the damage it did

A Mesmer rapier doing chaos damage...why bother using IW at all then?

The idea sucks. lol.

i said don't change the damage that means speed max or even if you want you can lower the max damage of the melee range ones.

i wasn't the one who said the rapier i said make them all staffs. every caster class gets one warstaff that still can help there spell lines and such. they will all be 2 handed so it balances the range diffrences you lose your off hand to go to melee range.

No competent IW mesmer uses any weapon-based warrior skills. The warrior secondary is just for Flurry.

Except you can already just switch to a wand and do exactly as much damage as the proposed mesmer melee weapon.

A sword does substantially more damage than a wand, and warriors have more defense against lightning than elementalists, so... this paragraph is nonsense.


IW doesn't do chaos damage. Mesmer wands do chaos damage. The idea here is to have a weapon that does damage just like a wand, but not at range. I don't see how this can possibly be considered unbalanced.

for you iw ppl i have a nice saying for you don't put all your eggs in one basket

I stopped reading here cause you said that I based my idea on physical damage when I clearly stated several times that it would still do non physical damage. Also because you seem to think that an earthquake elementalist does not need to stay in melee range so a melee casting weapon would be useful. And finally, because you based your argument on IW: One of the most useless skills in the game. Despite having terribly underpowered damage compared... Oh... say... Anything? It is also easily removed crippling your build for another 40 seconds - and if you can't take a disabled mesmer with no back up out in under 30, you suck.

I wasn't talking about skills. I was talking about skill attributes. Based on the weaknesses of IW, I don't think a competent IW mesmer uses IW at all. It's a fun skill, but you need Warrior attributes to make it worthwhile, if only to get the bare minimum weapon requirement so you can still do damage after IW gets obliterated.

So why even need a mesmer melee weapon in the first place? The suggestion makes no sense because there is absolutely no need for it from a gameplay perspective; there's only a need for it, like I've said before, from a "cool factor" perspective.

Sword max is 15-22. Wand max is 11-22. Not factoring in Strength...I don't really see "substantially more damage" in-game.

Regarding Lightning defense, throw up a Ward, some Earth enchant defenses, coupled with Aeromancer armor, and if my math isn't completely off, your AL won't be overshadowed by the Warrior's armor. In some cases, you'll have a higher (if only temporary) AL. Warriors having more defense against Lightning than Eles? A quick number crunch is saying otherwise. ~_^

Again, though...what's the point? It's still sounding like a wholly extraneous and nigh useless suggestion. If you're doing the same damage with a wand anyway, with an attack speed roughly equal to a sword, why the need for an actual melee weapon in the first place?

I'm going to ask again...if you're going to be doing the same damage anyway, why bother with a melee caster weapon of any type? You're not going to be focusing on doing damage with your weapon if you're any one of the above-listed close-quarters spellcaster builds, after all, because the point of being a close-quarters spellcaster build is to do damage in close-quarters with your spells.

I'm trying to break this sentence down so I can decipher the point you were trying to make with it, but...I'm having trouble. You're saying that I was implying...an Earthquake Ele could walk away from melee range and still have a melee caster weapon be useful? See my above point. I'll also re-iterate below.

If you're a close-quarters spellcaster, you're focusing on dealing damage with the spells, not with whatever is equipped in your right hand. I'm not saying you shouldn't swing away with wands, truncheons, etc., but what actual and legitimate benefit could there possibly be to getting these melee caster weapons?

If you're going to be hitting the space bar in close-quarters with any type of close-quarters spellcaster build...I highly, highly, highly doubt you'll see some dramatic jump in your damage output or improvement in your build's performance, simply because you can go into melee range without having to use the WASD keys.

I don't see how painful manually getting into proper positioning is. If anything, hitting the space bar and having the pathfinding get stuck is far more painful, and in GvG/PvP, or even PvE, the pathfinding gets stuck pretty often, especially on a crowded battlefield.

...are people really getting that...lazy...as to require the computer to even put them in proper position for their attacks?

I'm sorry, but when I saw you mention "Illusionary Mesmers" in the same thought process as melee weapons for casters, I naturally assumed you were referring to a build that used Illusion magic in close-quarters, swinging a sword around. Honestly, that's a logical connection that anyone would make, I'd think.

And this has what to do with anything? It's irrelevant to the topic at hand, and it's not adding anything to your rebuttal...so why include a sentence like that? It just comes off as trite and annoying.

As a sidenote here, it seems to me that this suggestion is really something the game doesn't need at this point, or really, at any point in time. I keep asking "what's the point?" because honestly, I don't see a point to this proposed feature.

If I'm the only person who thinks this, I'll shut-up, but I'm hoping others noticed, too. I know I saw one or two people on the first page talking about how this idea seems a bit extraneous.

umm you mean like everything you say also pay attention the speed of the wand or staff wouldn't change there for it would still be slow.

a spells caster weapon doesn't matter anyway is your argument i have noticed so y the hell are you agruing? if the weapon doesn't matter whats your freaking problem?

Since it doesn't matter why do we need it? That's my point. This is one of those useless suggestions that really do not change anything in terms of how the game is actually played, apart from letting players keep hitting the space bar to stay in melee range, without having to actually play to stay in melee range.

I have two main points:

One, this suggestion doesn't change anything in terms of combat dynamics, so there, it's totally unnecessary and extraneous, and I'd like to see more important changes/additions, quite honestly, that have an actual impact on the gameplay, rather than...see #2

Two, if a player can't be bothered to actually concentrate on manually positioning themselves for optimal performance for whatever their build requires, then I do not consider that to be a respectable reasoning for suggesting something like this idea. Simple as that.

Positioning is important in this game, and adding a feature like this is asinine, because instead of actively searching for an optimal position for a close-quarters Smiting build, what's the player going to have to do? Select the target and hit the space-bar. Auto pathfinding will take over, and if the player's lucky, they may get close enough to their target so they can actually do something.

But given how dreadful the pathfinding can be in this game sometimes? That player may very well end up having to (gasp!) manually control their character, and manually find their optimal positioning. In that scenario, the player may as well just have controlled their movement from the get-go, which effectively castrates this entire "melee caster weapon" idea.

I think you're being kind of harsh. Sure, it's not the most useful idea in the world, but there's some stupid crap that's already in gw. I don't see how adding more caster weapons would be harmful to anyone, it'd just be nice to have a new look.

I don't know about you, but I personally don't even bother attacking with my monk, or my mesmer. I think the original point was just to have weapons for attributes that currently have nothing, like wilderness, or just to be different. I don't see any more problem with that than adding new armor.

Somewhere along the way all this junk popped up.. but whatever. I'm all for new weapons, even if they are useless.



/signed

Siren, the point of these weapons - as stated many times - is, essentially, convenience. Yes, it's already possible to play builds based on touch-range spells without that convenience. No, the lack of these weapons is not a huge problem in dire need of immediate fixing. But why not add a little something to the game that will make them play more smoothly and more in-line with the general flow of the game? It's not like this would be a huge undertaking for Anet. A few new weapon models is all that's needed. Which does take some work - but it would add just as much to the game as any other graphical work that could be done.

Natalie, I understand the idea of it and all, I just don't feel that it will be adding any convenience at all, aside from the likely resulting issues of sloppy gameplay.

The only way for this to work is the AI being capable of finding a good path in the middle of combat. With hectic battlefields, players moving around constantly, for all intents and purposes a controlled chaos, depending on--for the sake of convenience--the AI to even keep the player within melee distance is a shortsighted and half-baked idea, because how convenient is the AI at this point?

To use an ancient example, it reminds me of Joe Montana Sports Talk Football on Sega Genesis. It was a fun football game, of course, but it suffered from major, major issues with the AI, notably, the AI could not recognize alternate paths. It was a beeline for the ball, that was it.

The AI glitch was so bad at times that my brother and I could get a lead of one field goal within the first few minutes of the first quarter, and then proceed to run around the field. And I'm not talking about it figuratively. I'm talking we literally could run down the sidelines, hang a right or a left at the goal line, run down that, then turn back on the other sideline and keep doing it in an endless loop. Know why? Because that game's AI functioned in a very similar way to how the AI functions in GW.

It's a beeline on a strict, set path, because the AI does not have the ability to recognize strategic chokepoints. It happened with that football game, it happens now. Had the AI been able to recognize that cutting our run off by cutting across the field earlier would allow them to tackle us, we wouldn't have been able to run rectangles around them. Strategic chokepoints.

Same principle here. The melee caster weapon idea relies on the same type of AI. You hit the space bar to start running in, that player runs around the field, and because the AI is controlling your character's movement at that point, it'll keep running as long as the target keeps running.

And if that target is doing something similar to rectangling around a football field...the very idea behind melee caster weapons--the convenience of it--is no longer convenient, because you, the player, will have to take manual control. Either you take manual control and go for the strategic chokepoint to cut off the run, or you select a different target. The AI can't do that.

There is really absolutely no reason at all, from combat dynamics, to put those weapons in. None at all.

If it's not convenient to manually position your character for combat, and so you ask for what amounts to a set of training wheels, but those training wheels predictably and routinely break, forcing you to keep your own balance and pay attention to what you're doing...how convenient were those training wheels? Did they serve their purpose? No. They didn't.

The minute you would need to take manual control again from the AI routine required by the melee caster weapons is the minute you should realize the idea is fundamentally flawed and inherently broken. A convenience is only a convenience when it's...a convenience. Babysitting a beeline AI is not convenient.

/still unsigned