Curse

HolyHawk · Jan 06, 2007, 03:02 PM // 15:02

This came a little out of nowhere, but I caught myself thinking today: do you believe close melee, as in warriors and perhaps dervishes, are more skilled than ranged professions? I mean, ever since I started playing, I never really got interested in those, and have been playing casters mostly. I'm not saying that casters suck, I don't think I am that bad anyways, but in my view, warriors always need to expose themselves a lot more (and that's usually when they die, they did it too much), they are easier to be shut down, and they seem more prepared as well when dueling rangers or casters. Do you think that there is a difference of skill between ranged and close ranged specializations?

Thomas.knbk · Jan 06, 2007, 03:17 PM // 15:17

No. There isn't. Shutdown mesmer is probably the hardest thing to play in Guild Wars, and I won't even talk about the fine aspects of monking. Sure, there are brainless casters, such as SF eles, but there are brainless melee classes as well.

Muk Utep · Jan 06, 2007, 05:25 PM // 17:25

I pretty much only play melee characters. I don't really think it takes more skill. They generally have much better survival, either through high armor, easily usable buffs/heals, or great mobility skills. I find it relatively simple the play a melee, you usually have one combo of attack skills that you use, and then a set of utility skills. You do the same most of the time, the thing that requires the most skill is picking the right targets. Actually, because I'm bored, I'll list my thoughts on each profession (or the ones I've played for any length of time).

Monk
Not particularly difficult to learn the basics, but becoming a truly good monk takes a lot of time and experience. Your team depends on you more than anyone else, you probably have the biggest responsibility, and your skill (or lack of) has a big impact on the entire team's performance.

Necromancer
They seem to usually have one job, mostly consisting of a single skill, that they spam. That's probably not always the case but I never really played one much, so I can't say much.

Mesmer
Depending on the many various builds, this profession can be either very simple or extremely difficult. Most of their skills require reflexes and careful timing rather than spam or routine.

Ritualist
Haven't seen them much, except for the spirit-spammers in every single RA game.

Ranger
Fairly simple and straight-forward profession, interrupting takes timing and reflexes similarly to some Mesmer skills, but the rest of the skills don't take that much finesse to use, or time to master.

Assassin
Not sure. I only played one in PvE, and their main purpose in PvP seems to be taking out enemy NPCs while they're not looking. They have high potential damage, but I find them too frail and conditional to be a core part of PvP. Doesn't seem to take more skill than other melee types.

Dervish
It seems that perfecting your build is more difficult than playing it. They're a powerful class with continually growing potential, but don't take any more skill than other pressure melee classes.

Warrior
The main difficulty is picking your targets, and knowing not to over-extend. Your skills quickly become routine as you generally use the same combo all the time.

Paragon
Haven't really played this in PvP, but it doesn't look too hard. In my experience, support classes are usually pretty simple to play. Doesn't make it any harder that most of your skills are shouts and things that affect the entire party. Just gotta know when to use them.

Elementalist
Depends on the build, but this is generally another simple profession. Their skills are mostly straight-forward and unconditional, and they have some good defensive abilities if their build contains it.

Note that these are my opinions, and that exceptions always exist.

Patrograd · Jan 06, 2007, 08:26 PM // 20:26

In my experience, melee and monk are the most technically difficult roles in GvG, along with flag running. I think all three of these are essentially career choices, things you need, if you want to properly master them, to really focus on pretty much to the exclusion of all other roles.

The Real Roy Keane · Jan 07, 2007, 02:38 AM // 02:38

Warrior was arguably the most difficult profession to play until they introduced Shadow Prison.

stueyman2099 · Jan 07, 2007, 02:42 AM // 02:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Real Roy Keane

Warrior was arguably the most difficult profession to play until they introduced Shadow Prison.

Good warriors do alot more than spike.

Seamus Finn · Jan 07, 2007, 03:51 AM // 03:51

These discussions are always impossible. Basically the builds have learning curves adn then how far a player can take it. Monks have probably the highest learnign curve with maybe a good dom mes, but a lost of builds can be taken a lot higher depending on who is behind them. There's no way to answer the question and the break down a little further up makes me chuckle a bit.

Greedy Gus · Jan 07, 2007, 07:17 AM // 07:17

I personally find melee classes more challenging to play well than casters (not including monks). I think the big difference is you have to worry about positioning & movement constantly on a melee class. As a caster, you only have to worry about positioning in relation to the other team's melee characters. You also are able to use your skills in between large amounts of kiting, whereas the melee character has a job to be doing while their skills are recharging.

lord of shadow · Jan 07, 2007, 09:53 AM // 09:53

I think it takes a lot less skill than is usually percieved to play an ok monk, just looking at red bars and making them go up, and occasionally preprotting something if you see an entire team running towards it. I also think that at higher levels monk requires a very very high level of micromanagement, and is probably the most stressful class to play due to having to spread attention between a list that includes but is not limited to.

Enemy warriors' convergence on other players, enemy warriors in general, opposition skills, incoming hexes, positioning kiting and prekiting, which way casters are facing and the party window. For this reason i agree 100% with patro that in order to be a good monk it does require a career choice, however i find it sad how often people get away with just staring at a red bar and pushing buttons.

Of course most of the above list applies to all casters, the difference is that not only do monks have 2-3 more, they will also often have at least one thing tryign to kill them (melee wailing in your face or dom mes spamming stuff typically). But most importantly they have such a direct effect on your team: if you suck, people die, end of.

as for the most skilled, i don't think there is one, some builds are easier to get away with playing badly, but in a good team with one good monk i don't think monks are entirely excuded from this (esp healing monks). Skill comes from doing more with the same bar, not playing a more difficult one.

Ensign · Jan 07, 2007, 11:04 AM // 11:04

Weak Warriors or Monks will be very obvious on a team, but weak flaggers or support characters will crush you in more insidious ways.

Individual templates are easier or harder to run, depending on just how much micro they require - however, strategically and tactically, all of the positions require an awful lot of unique understanding.

Peace,
-CxE

mrs poor · Jan 07, 2007, 11:25 AM // 11:25

I think playing a decent warrior is much harder then playing a caster. The problem is when casters mess up nobody notice's unless its a huge mistake. When a warrior mess's up everyone notices. Since it goes unnoticed many of the casters get a free ride which is sad. So its easier to play i mean u dont really need to know alot to play and you can make mistakes. Now playing a good caster is another story.

Thom · Jan 07, 2007, 08:12 PM // 20:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Weak Warriors or Monks will be very obvious on a team, but weak flaggers or support characters will crush you in more insidious ways.

Individual templates are easier or harder to run, depending on just how much micro they require - however, strategically and tactically, all of the positions require an awful lot of unique understanding.

Peace,
-CxE

QFT

Micro is very build dependent. Monks and mesmers tend to have more sophisticated micro. That said, one can build a playable pvp build where the micro can be mastered almost immediately for each class.

"Macro" or strategic play, situational awareness and anticipation requires significant skill at every position. A fun example is the trapper: trappers need to anticipate enemy movement for optimal effectiveness trapping attacks, retreats, choke points and flagger paths. At the same time the trapper has to do this while mitigating damage and communicate kiting zones to the team. Another example of strategic play comes from a common failing of young monks: recognizing and communicating bad situations before you incur dp. Conversely monks should also now when the situation looks worse than it is. There are times the team has full health bars, but I've got a bad divert (yeah I'm a noob) and not enough energy to save a spike, but there are other times when the health bar is ugly when everything is actually fairly stable.

Infectious · Jan 07, 2007, 11:12 PM // 23:12

Apples and oranges, don't even try to compare the skills required to do each one.

HolyHawk · Jan 07, 2007, 11:16 PM // 23:16

Thx for your opinions. Just wanted to clarify, I was asking between offensive roles, so that would probably exclude monks. Their especialization level is ideed high, at least I imagine they need to think too much in too little time, but I was wondering a situation like 2 people dueling at the flag stand, or gank/base defender situation. I also agree with what mrs poor, it's a lot easier to see when a melee screws up than a caster does.

Patccmoi · Jan 08, 2007, 02:25 AM // 02:25

I'm specialized mostly in support/offensive casters (Mesmer, Eles, Rt, Necros) and you can't just categorize the prof as easy or hard to play at all because it's SO build dependant, and not just yours but the other team's too.

For example, even the overall simple build of offensive spirit spammer becomes a lot more complicated if the other team has an interrupt ranger in their core group that sticks on your back and you have to find way to plant your spirits still, using a mix of obstacles, fake casting (self-interrupting) and positioning while keeping an eye on the ranger to see if he's busy on someone else for a second to try to achieve as much as you can while keeping him as busy as you can (cause if he's locking you but he's not managing to do anything else because you keep doing fake castings and keeping his attention on you, at least it's a 1-1 trade).

Tactical casters like Mesmers are about making good decisions and well timed use of your skills. I mean, a traditional Dom Mesmer (not talking about just spike assist mesmer, but say a Mesmer in a pressure build using Diversion, Shame, ESurge, EBurn...) can't cast his skills on recharge without running out of energy at all and has to decide what to use when for maximum efficiency, and while your team might not notice easily the difference between a good a bad Dom Mesmer the other team will. Your attackers can feel very good about their spiking but aren't noticing that you had 1 monk Shamed and 1 monk Diversion when they actually did that spike.

Eles it depends a lot on the build. Some are truly mindless button mashers (SF...) but a lot have a mix of support (Draw Conditions, Blind) along with spikes and pressure damage that can be a challenge to actually play efficiently while keeping an eye on your party bars for Draw, their melee to Blind just before they unleash adrenal and positioning for spike targets. A lot can do it -ok-, but it's not actually an 'easy' build. Again, doing a good job can go fairly unnoticed, and when you face something like a Euro spike and manage to blind the warrior just before his attack hits allowing the monk to infuse the spike it'll go unnoticed by your team which will just be like 'great infuse' without noticing that the spike would've actually kill still if you didn't blind one.

I played melee some too, mostly pressure build like Dervish or Assassin to spike/gank, and it's just totally different. Melee's hardest thing from my experience is to keep a good positional awareness and have a good target choice while using your skills efficiently. The main challenge is not to get too much in tunnel-vision mode where you might overextend too much or not notice a target that screwed his positioning and could make an easy prey.

Monks and warriors basically have the obvious roles. If they're good, it shows, and if they're bad, it shows even more. Other casters aren't easier or harder, but what you do ISN'T obvious so wether you screw up or make game breaking moves will just go unnoticed most of the time by your own team. It's more a general feel of being unable to achieve the pressure you should or feeling a pressure greater than you should when support/offensive casters aren't doing their job, but it can lead to a victory or loss just as much as your warriors or monks. It's a job that tends to be less stressing since mistakes aren't usually blamed on you or noticed at all, but at the same time you get a lot less recognition when you do good moves than a good monk or warrior does.

That being said, it's still a team game and you need everyone to be as good as possible. I think it's a mistake to assume a role (or even worse a CLASS) is easy or hard and i saw lots of mistakes done because of it because teams just put their worse/filler players there, or people that just never played the role but assume they can cause it's 'easy'. When you know what a good player a certain role looks like and you obs one closely that isn't experienced, it makes you grind your teeth hard, be it a caster, a warrior or a monk. I remember watching some pretty complex Rt build we had ran by people that never played the role and i felt like crying obsing the game because the Rts did mistake after mistake, but they were sure the role was easy since 'Rts are easy to play'.

The only thing I'll agree is the learning curve is a lot different depending on builds, and that some roles are more crucial than others, and i think that monks (or healer anyway) are at the top there. Cause no matter how good the rest of your team is, a bad monk will make games really hard to win while a very good monks can allow your team to make many mistakes and save them from very tight spots. Basically a bad support caster might make you win or lose over the course of a game, but a bad monk will make you lose before you even started. In the same way, bad warriors (or main melee) might make you simply unable to score any kill in the game no matter what the rest of your team is doing.