After some thought while playing recently I have thought up some Ideas to tweak the ranged vs melee concept more towards a balanced state.
I would like to point out that these are not intended to all be tweaks done at one time and that these are things to start adjusting over time to find that sweet spot.
Ranged
The biggest nerf to ranged will need to come in the form of dodging. Dodging right now has way too many rewards with little punishment. It allows ranged players to be caught out of position, and be able to just get away. Not only that but combine this with the rapier secondary that I know everyone has seen a musket or bow user actually abuse, and you have a nasty combo. The biggest things that I know is frustrating is the “eyeframe” concept of dodging. The window is huge, and from what I have seen has no counter, especially when almost every move is slower and telegraphs. These tweaks should be done in 3 different parts, window and regen, directional difference, and AOE effectiveness.
AOE effectiveness is the most simple and straight forward. You should still be affected by an AOE while in a dodge. If you dodge out of that AOE you are fine, but if you are caught in the AOE you should still take damage while dodging.
For window and regen, the “eyeframe” window needs to be tweaked so that it puts more of an emphasis on proper timing. This means that even with the telegraphed attacks, you still require some timing to avoid it. As far as regen goes, it seems that the stamina regen rate of dodging is quicker than blocking regen, I feel that these should be synced as to allow both parties to allow the same amount of opportunity.
Finally what I am calling Directional difference. Essentially this is that a dodge should not be the exact same in every direction, as well as vulnerability based on which direction you are dodging. For forward and backwards dodges, being struck should still take damage, backwards dodges should also have less distance. This would mean that players would have to turn to dodge forward and escape, but you can still backwards dodge to dodge some attacks.
This is all the main argument I have for dodging to help balance the ranged vs melee.
Musket Sticky Bomb
Currently Musket users can throw their sticky bomb THROUGH a shield that is blocking, this should be changed so that the bomb sticks to the shield. Small oversight that happened somewhere in development.
Melee
As for properly balancing melee, staggering and knockbacks should be toned down and tweaked, being hit should still be a punishment, but shouldn’t keep you defenseless. Moves Like clear out and maelstrom should still stay the same as they are good counters to people sitting on points or healing AOEs.
Another small Idea that would probably get me burned at the stake for is changing shockwave on the WH to a root instead of a stun, this would still have the AOE effectiveness, keep crowd control, and help with the inevitable spam you will encounter in grouped up PVP.
For Great Axes I would tweak attack speed, as well as the balance of charge and the gravity well. The range of chase down ability these two abilities have paired together is absolutely insane.
Spears I think are currently fair and balanced. And the spear throw is absolutely hilarious to see.
Rapiers have insane burst and the ability to spam riposte. I think a failed riposte should have some kind of vulnerability or penalty applied to it. Unsure of what exactly, maybe something like 10% extra damaged taken on next hit if hit right after.
Hatchets I do not have any current ideas on balancing. It hasn’t been overwhelmingly used in my server but it is extremely strong when I have come across it.
Sword and Shield seems to be OK where it is at.