I played an enhancement shaman in WoW and a rogue in RIFT, and kiting is what you do when the pull went wrong. Switching to a ranged weapon is what you do when the raid boss is poorly designed. :P

That being said I’ve been idly pondering lately how to make life more difficult for ranged and less difficult for melee, and to be fair to the professionals it’s not an easy nut to crack.

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You can comment the design is flawed, but it might just as well be the numbers. I say: if the designs are compelling, let us try to balance the numbers first and then if not possible go back to design. The most difficult part of balancing is balancing solo play lvling (PvE and PvP), multiplayer PvP (lvling and end-game) _and_ PvE end-game in ONE game because then you need the same abilities to function different or have different output. After all, PvE content is dumb and scripted (solo, coop, raid/operations/dungeon 5/8/10/15/16/25m) whereas the various types of PvP allows room for creativity and imagination (and different amount of players versus players e.g. WvWvW, sPvP/BG/WZ, arena, duel, world PvP). All these different types of gameplay in different types of games does make the discussion complex.

“You see, the problem with the above “balanced” game design is the notion that both ranged and melee are intended to ultimately be viable, e.g. be equivalently good at damage.”

What you wrote after “e.g.” is contrary to what was written above. The above said melee do more damage than ranged. This is what Jon wrote:

“Melee does more damage. Melee damage is simply higher than ranged damage across the board.”

He included a list, not just that damage should be equal.

Keep in mind though that since fight last less long with more damage there is less chance to make mistake. This should also be included in risk reward. I will give you an example on this in other game later on.

The more damage from melee in fight is same in WoW on static fight. Go do Ultraxion. Who is highest DPS? Melee (except feral kitty because they can’t shred. Rogue loses some in execute phase too.) and demo lock (who in patch 4.3, as ranged DPS, does best dmg during complete lack of movement in melee range, has good single target and AoE burst, and very heavy stacked AoE in melee range; Ultraxion falls in first category). And that is _fine_. It is _OK_ that some classes or type of DPS or specs are better than others on certain fights. PvP-wise this means that the ranged must kite the melee, and the melee is being kited by ranged in PvP. We see this back in games like SWTOR, WoW, and also in GW2.

As I already said in GW2 there is no such thing as pure melee or pure ranged. So you should roll the class you like the lore behind, or because you like the initial abilities (buy white quality weapons from weaponsmith, level them up, and then try your profession in PvP!). I admit it does make sense to roll a thief if you expect a rogue-like playstyle, but it is better to decide with less prejudice what you’re going to play, or read into the lore. If you believe a thief in GW2 ought to be melee-only you did not understand the lore behind thief nor did you understand in GW2 there is no melee-only or ranged-only profession. Question is, is this your mistake or the games? This is why I like that games don’t use same terminology so to not create wrong expectations. The Warzone is not a Battleground. The Operations is not a Raid. The Concealment Operative is not a Rogue. While we do make these compares to give people an idea, we should also remember that they are compares and not equations. So one can compare a conceal op with a thief a rogue because all have stealth class mechanics and are “the sneaky class in game” but we must also acknowledge they’re taken out of context.

Aside from that, it appears in GW2 solo play melee fits more a playstyle to people who know (and remember) tactics and know the field (you stated you CBA w/that). They know when to run and when not to run therefore maximizing their DPS. There’s some trial and error here, and will to improve and learn after wipe by responding quicker. Ranged is more forgiving but cannot reach the high amount of DPS a good melee is achieving no matter what. They’ll be less bursty, and receive a lot of damage when failing to kite.

Therefore, the initial response of a melee player is important whereas for a ranged player it is important to not make positioning mistakes during kiting. What do you prefer? I agree most would prefer the latter, but that does not mean the former shouldn’t be an option. Just most options for players should be in the latter (ie. there should be more ranged) because that is what most people prefer so that you get every class roughly as popular as each other.

In Diablo 3 during solo play the kiting is high risk high reward for classes like demon hunter and wizard because if they get hit they are one or two shot. Make one mistake and you are dead. Contrast this to a melee, they won’t be one or two shot. Some affixes are harder for melee, some for ranged. Still, a DH won’t stack defensive stats whereas barb and monk do stack lots of that. I’d say the risk aversion is flipped around here unless you are a very good player. If you’re very good you won’t fail your kiting as DH. Your reward is higher as DH because you do more dmg (more about that below about TERA). It shouldn’t come with surprise the barbarian is popular in hardcore.

There’s also mechanisms where melee are favored: D3 mortar, stack phase, melee with gap closers versus ranged without (my spriest and operative doesn’t have them). There’s also situations where the lack of gap closer will make you have to react quicker no matter if you are melee or ranged.

I also suggest you go watch world first Diablo 3 hardcore inferno kill video. The way they killed Diablo as well as bosses before that is due to heavy kiting mostly by the barbarian. Because the barbarian was good at kiting, and the wizard positioned well just outside of screen (less chance of aggro), and because they had good continuations due to positioning after both had to kite, the wizard was able to do more output which leads to shorter fight which leads to less possibility of mistakes. This did require exercise and communication though.

“As Jon points out, “You have to move in and out avoiding damage.” What does ranged do? Move… backwards?”

With default keybinds the player presses two times the same move button on wasd or point your mouse somewhere and press v. This moves the character away like a barrel roll. During the entire time of said movement they cannot be hit. After that you created a gap and you are able to do whatever you want (e.g. move/kite, channel something, wave at your opponent as they come closer). Welcome to GW2!

“Having said all that, what do you guys think?”

What I think: the nay-sayers (ie. you) should come up with various examples of alternatives to kiting as melee, or mechanics to make gameplay harder for ranged to equalize the field. I see you complain but you don’t come up with alternatives.

“Is kiting a “standard strategy for melee in all MMO games?””

We’ve not covered all games. They variate, even from patch to patch.

Usually the melee are being kited, and if a melee is almost dead going to kite won’t make sense because by the time they’re out of range they’re dead by ranged. My operative can write a book about sorcerers in Huttball. However there are alternatives and relatives to out of range kiting: LoS, burst, gap closer/opener, stealth. Also, sometimes it is OK to die due to positioning change or “picking a different weapon” in FPS (in past the good player out of ammo conundrum). An example of that is enemy attacking in Huttball while you need to be on defense but just scored. Since you’re not positioned to own mid either you’re better off dying quickly there, to regroup/reposition.

I did notice that in TERA during character creation the tank and melee characters had difficulty of 3/5, 4/5, or 5/5 with the 2 ranged characters having 2/5 each. The healers had either 3/5 or 4/5. Since I want to be challenged, but don’t enjoy playing melee 24/7 (do like it every once in a while) I went for the 4/5 healer option.

In WoW we had very few fights where ranged kited. Most fights tanks (= melee with lots of dmg mitigation and CDs) kite if there is kiting necessary. Nobody said the partly ranged paladin is particularly good at kiting. No, it is the warrior with all his gap closers. Ie. you want a warrior for P3 Spine HC. During lvling the player is barely challenged so we can dismiss that part of the game as irrelevant. WoW also lacks the A in ARPG; it is far more MMORPG than ARPG or hybrid.

In SWTOR I played a concealment ops. I had 2 stuns (one AoE which broke on dmg allowing me to run away or channel a heal). I kited, and had I opted for lvling spec I’d have instant self heals to use during kiting (instead, I had to use stuns + channeled heal + kite). The big AoE patches not to dance in are impossible to miss in this game. Because of my ridiculous burst from behind and ability to stealth through content I was able to solo a lot of content easily with little risk. I’m not even going to attempt to compare this to assassin PvP tank (content just takes longer) or full healer (content takes longer, and you need to constantly switch between strong heals and weak dmg). For quick lvling, hybrid is the way to go in a game like this. Interesting note: the operative is the only class in SWTOR who doesn’t have gap closer, but they do have stealth. The two are not mutually exclusive: assassin has both.

I don’t agree with comment melee combat is always more risky IRL. Someone who is skilled in martial arts would prefer melee combat; he’d pwn most opponents, and could be deadly (instant gibs exist, as well accurate methods to torture). Someone who is skilled shooter would prefer that. While I’d say the “only a few classes with high risk high reward” option is viable perhaps the truth to accept is that playing a melee character is generally harder than a ranged character. A rogue-like character with burst and ability to skip content is therefore a good solution in my opinion because this makes fights shorter (means less risk), easy way to withdraw from fight. A feral too, because then you can swap to something more viable.

Also, since you cannot faceroll as melee in GW2 like in WoW, since you don’t want to learn/remember tactics of content (THE content; lvling), since you don’t want to play ranged on your thief I’d say the only possible outcome is don’t play GW2? I guess TERA is also out of the question. I’m invited in TSW BWE and I’ll roll “melee”, if possible, to see if I can make some observations.

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Melee having to kite – and, in fact, the whole “melee vs. ranged” dichotomy and its associated – has mostly historical reasons for its existence; Chainmail begat D&D, which begat other tabletop RPGs, which begat CRPGs, which begat MMORPGs.

In wargames, melee kiting was a perfectly valid tactic; for example, a unit of light cavalry could “kite” a heavier yet slower opponent into a trap, setting them up for a devastating flank charge, instead of fighting them face-to-face. The unit didn’t get to fight, but it was OK, because it still brought you one step closer to victory.

Even in MMORPGs, this approach still works in team-oriented encounters. An off-tank leading an add away from MT or a warrior carrying a flag in a battleground usually isn’t feeling particularly slighted, even though he’s technically engaged in “melee kiting” – because he’s ensuring his team’s victory by his actions.

However, in the absence of the team/army (i.e., during solo play), this model falls apart, as you correctly observed.

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