So about these command skills...

When they changed our shouts to command skills I expected a few things happening.

• new rune that plays to command skills
• trait overhaul to synergize with command skills

Nothing of the sort really happened. We just lost utility from trooper and reaper runes that some players used.

Adding a rune that pulls conditions from allies to yourself would make ranger super useful in larger groups.Transfer 2 conditions each from 5 allies within 360 range when using a command skill on a 30s cooldown.Add signet of renewal in the mix along with bear stance and ranger suddenly has more group value.

Or hell... add a rune that transfers effects and boons from command skills with 50% duration to 5 allies within 360 range.Sic em here, sic em there, protection from protect me, stab and might generation from SOTP....

Will Anet do it though? No.

Why exactly do you expect a new rune that specifically buffs a skill type that is currently just used by one single class?I mean, sure, would be nice. But as someone who mains engineer, a class that has almost nothing but unique skill types with the exception of wells from scrapper: Won't happen.

I am not exactly sure why they reworked command skills again away from being shouts, tho.

@Kodama.6453 said:Why exactly do you expect a new rune that specifically buffs a skill type that is currently just used by one single class?

Well... Runes of the Ranger and Soulbeast specifically target Ranger class mechanics...

A Rune that buffs Commands could at least eventually be shared by another Class if they ever received Command skill types.

That said, who knows wtf ANet is thinking with regards to skill types. What with various skills being changed (Ranger Shouts > Commands, Thief Traps > Preparations etc) as well as some E-Specs getting unique skill types (Berserker > Rage, Scourge > Punishment, Holosmith > Exceed, Herald > Facet)

As well as Core Engie having entirely unique skill types... (Though, this can be attributed to the fact that Engie has been forgotten about since 2012)

Not to mention other Core classes having as of yet, unique skill types (Ele > Conjure, Arcane, Warrior > Banner, Ranger > Spirit, Survival, Necromancer > Corruption, Minion, Spectral, Guardian > Consecration, Spirit Weapon, Thief > Trick, Venom, Mesmer > Clone, Phantasm, Glamour, Manipulation)

All in all, it seems like the design team has been drunk when it comes to skill types, so who really knows what will happen...

@"Taril.8619" said:

According to the wiki (didn't test it personally), runes of the ranger do not specifically just trigger with the ranger class mechanic. Summoned NPCs like minions are also considered "companions", so the effect of that rune is not restricted to the ranger only.You are right that the soulbeast rune has a mechanic which is just available for soulbeasts, tho, being the attribute switch.

About skill types in general: It makes sense to create new unique skill types, if the skills are different from what is already in the game mechanically. Exceed skills, for example, don't work like any other skill type in the game. The closest we have are the burst skills from warriors, since they also scale with different adrenaline levels. But there is still the difference that burst skills are locked if you have 0 adrenaline and they are consuming all the adrenaline you have. Exceed skills don't consume heat and they also are still usable while at 0 heat.

@Kodama.6453 said:Why exactly do you expect a new rune that specifically buffs a skill type that is currently just used by one single class?I mean, sure, would be nice. But as someone who mains engineer, a class that has almost nothing but unique skill types with the exception of wells from scrapper: Won't happen.

I am not exactly sure why they reworked command skills again away from being shouts, tho.

Does engi have a useful WvW zerg build that's somewhat meta? Yes.Does ranger have a useful WvW zerg build that's somewhat meta? No.

This is the reason.

@"Kodama.6453" said:About skill types in general: It makes sense to create new unique skill types, if the skills are different from what is already in the game mechanically. Exceed skills, for example, don't work like any other skill type in the game.

However, there's nothing stopping them from simply adding the Heat mechanic to an existing skill type.

Much like how Glyphs and Mantras differ between classes.

I.e. Druid's Glyphs do something different based on if they're in Astral form or not, while Ele Glyphs provide a different effect based on attunement.

Mesmer Mantra's provide boons upon charging the Mantras. While Firebrand Mantra's provide bonus effects on consuming the last charge.

There's no mechanical reason why they couldn't have given Holosmith (Also Berserker), Arcane, Cantrip, Meditation, Glyph, Spectral, Deception, Manipulation or Glamour skills with the additional text of "Does X while Berserk/Above Y% Heat"

The only notable reason would be one of thematics, it being weird for these classes to use Arcane/Spectral/Glyph/Meditation skills

Though, given the lack of functional differences between many of these it's theoretically possible to consolidate some into more generic forms. Like;

• Spectral, Exceed and Glamour skills all rely on creating some form of image, be it spectral wraiths, holograms or illusionary effects. Theoretically they could be consolidated down into something like "Imagry" skills
• Banners, Turrets, Spirits, Spirit Weapons and to an extent Conjures (Also Legendary Renegade skills) all provide stationary objects that do things such as attacking/buffing allies. These could theoretically be consolidated down into a singular skill type.
• Arcane, Physical and Gadget skills are all primarily attack type skills and could be consolidated down.
• Survival, Trick, Meditation and Punishment skills all function the same with being a hodge podge of utility/damage skill effects.
• Stance and Elixirs work the same, providing self buffs and again, could be consolidated.
• Consecrations are just Wells.

There are few truly mechanically unique skill types in the game. Notable ones are Engie's Kits, Mesmer's Clone/Phantasms (Though, I guess they could be classified as "Minion" skills?), Necro's Minions, Thief's Venoms (Though only as a entire Skill line, Ele's Arcane Power and Glyph of Elemental Power both utilize similar functionality)

@"Taril.8619" said:

Glyphs on druid and elementalist function the same mechanically.In the end it comes down to: The skill changes functionality based on the form you are currently in. For druid, there are just 2 forms with base and celestial avatar. For elementalist, there are 4 forms, 1 for each element.But fundamentally, it is still the same mechanic.

However, it is true that Anet is not really consequent with their skill type design.It seems that thematic is a factor here, but then on the other hand we have stuff like the scrapper gyros, which are wells. It makes sense mechanically that they are wells, but thematically, not really.

But I can't really agree with your proposed unifications here, tho.

• You say that exceed skills are based on "images", yet the healing skill (Coolant Blast) has nothing to do with images/holograms like the other exceed skills.
• Putting banners and turrets in the same category also seems weird for me. Turrets are more like stationary minions (same for renegade summons) than banners, considering that banners can't get damaged.
• Elixirs don't really function like stances, since elixirs just work on activation and have no lingering effect afterwards except the boons. Stances do have these lingering effects. I would be ok with buffing elixirs to have some lingering unique effects, too, tho. :)

@Kodama.6453 said:

• You say that exceed skills are based on "images", yet the healing skill (Coolant Blast) has nothing to do with images/holograms like the other exceed skills.

And Elixir Gun and Flamethrower aren't Kits, they're guns.

Not all of a particular skill line is 100% appropriately themed

@Kodama.6453 said:

• Putting banners and turrets in the same category also seems weird for me. Turrets are more like stationary minions (same for renegade summons) than banners, considering that banners can't get damaged.

Banners can't get damaged, but neither can Conjured weapons.

Banners provide AoE stats, just like Spirits do. Spirits can be damaged. Banners cannot.

Banners and Turrets both have the mechanism of being able to be picked up to reduce their cooldown.

There's a lot of overlap in their mechanics, which could lead to them being put together, especially since such a consolidation of skills merely means that Runes can be utilized by multiple classes while they use their particular mechanics.

@Kodama.6453 said:

• Elixirs don't really function like stances, since elixirs just work on activation and have no lingering effect afterwards except the boons.

Endure Pain.Frenzy.Twist of Fate.

@"Kodama.6453" said:

I am not exactly sure why they reworked command skills again away from being shouts, tho.

It was a dumb "thematic" decision. Apparently someone thought that the ranger wasn't just shouting into the area, but instead specifically shouting a 'command' at the pet.That might be accurate, but then again someone already mentioned gyros being reclassified to wells. I wouldn't have a problem with any of this if it seemed clear that ANet actually had a consistent plan for strongly-themed balance. But I get the feeling they made this sort of change then just totally forgot about it.

@"Taril.8619" said:Endure Pain.Frenzy.Twist of Fate.

Endure Pain makes you take no strike damage for it's duration.Frenzy used to have a lingering effect, making you take 25% more damage, but it got reworked, so it is an exception here.Twist of Fate makes you evade during it's duration.

Meanwhile there are just 2 elixirs out of 6 which have lingering effects: Elixir S (invuln) and Elixir X (if you want to count the transformation).The other elixirs are all a drink without any side effects.

Banners can't get damaged, but neither can Conjured weapons.

Banners provide AoE stats, just like Spirits do. Spirits can be damaged. Banners cannot.

Banners and Turrets both have the mechanism of being able to be picked up to reduce their cooldown.

There's a lot of overlap in their mechanics, which could lead to them being put together, especially since such a consolidation of skills merely means that Runes can be utilized by multiple classes while they use their particular mechanics.

There might be some overlap, but I still think that turrets have more overlap with minions. Turrets always have been considered "AI minions" by the playerbase, it is just more logical to package them together with other summoned units like necromancer minions.

I agree that some skills could get bundled together, I just don't agree with the explicit examples you have posted.

@Kodama.6453 said:Endure Pain makes you take no strike damage for it's duration.Frenzy used to have a lingering effect, making you take 25% more damage, but it got reworked, so it is an exception here.Twist of Fate makes you evade during it's duration.

If that's how you look at things...

Then I guess Mist Form is a Stance now. Arcane Power is a Stance. Glyph of Elemental Power is a Stance. Glyph of (Lesser) Elementals are Stances. Conjures are Stances. Lightning Reflexes is a Stance. Sic 'Em is a Stance. Guard is a Stance. Roll for Initiative is a Stance. Venoms are Stances. Spectrum Shield is a Stance. Photon Wall is a Stance.

Or, we can look at things objectively and see that Elixirs and Stances are quite equitable;

• Both affect your own character only (Baseline. Soulbeast can trait for shared stances)
• Both provide positive effects (Boons, a unique buff that makes you gain boons, or a unique buff that changes something about your gameplay)
• Both have outliers that provide a purely instant effect (Twist of Fate and Elixir R)

As such, Elixirs could quite easily be compared to Stances. Elixir H provides boons for a duration. Elixir B provides boons for a duration. Elixir U provides boons for a duration. Elixir C converts conditions into boons for a duration. Elixir S provides immunity for a duration. Elixir R is the outlier alongside Twist of Fate for an instant effect.

The fact that none of them provide a unique buff could be Engie's twist on the skill type. Like how Weaver's twist is having 2 charges of them

@Kodama.6453 said:There might be some overlap, but I still think that turrets have more overlap with minions. Turrets always have been considered "AI minions" by the playerbase, it is just more logical to package them together with other summoned units like necromancer minions.

Arguments can be made for either decision.

Ultimately, the purpose of consolidating down skill types into more generic ones allows for more effects that target them. In which, I believe Turrets would benefit more from the sort of Rune effects that Banners/Conjures/Spirits/Renegade skills would, being that they're a "Put down in a static location" skills (Yes, Spirits can be moved, but the general design is buffing a specific area)

If Turrets were reworked into something you would actually want to have fighting beside you and are incentivized to keep active and shooting, then it would make more sense for them to be paired in with Minion skills and potential Rune effects that might depend on having active NPC units (I.e. If Ranger and Soulbeast runes were more generic)

@hobotnicax.7918 said:Does engi have a useful WvW zerg build that's somewhat meta? Yes.Does ranger have a useful WvW zerg build that's somewhat meta? No.

This is the reason.

You realise that a rune effect won't give the ranger a useful WvW zerg meta build right? The reason why the ranger do not have a WvW zerg meta build is that the ranger is not adapted to this kind of gameplay, a useful rune effect might make him take a step in the right direction but a single step when you need 10 amount to nothing in the end.

The current meta builds for zerg v zerg are to strong in their niche and the ranger's main mechanism is just to weak to face the kind of environment generated by a fight between 2 zergs. One could argue that SB reduce the handicap of the ranger's pet, yet it doesn't bridge the gap with the meta niches. Truly, the ranger is just not cut off for that, his best tricks are gated behind killable minions which do not fare well in an environment where you need to move and dodge swiftly. No rune effect ever can fix that.

@voltaicbore.8012 said:

@"Kodama.6453" said:

I am not exactly sure why they reworked command skills again away from being shouts, tho.

They wanted to get rid of the synergy with Rune of the Trooper (Soldier) that removed conditions. If you used WHaO + Child of Earth + Rune of the Soldier, you removed 3 conditions.

It hit Druid harder IMO. They really hate Druid.

It was a decision based in PvP, they really really hated bunker druid.

@anduriell.6280 said:It was a decision based in PvPCan't this be said about all of the balance decisions? Yeah.

@Krispera.5087 said:

@voltaicbore.8012 said:

@"Kodama.6453" said:

I am not exactly sure why they reworked command skills again away from being shouts, tho.

Obviously getting rid of the rune synergies was a goal, they mentioned as much in the patch notes. However, I refuse to grant them the satisfaction of having any real logic behind that decision. On a personal cleanse level, unguent + Wilderness Knowledge + Child of Earth peels 4 conditions. Also, druid retains the Druidic Clarity supercleanse, and every ranger can run the (admittedly un-ideal) Signet of Renewal as well as the aforementioned Wilderness Knowledge trait to get good access to personal cleanse. Hell, in 3v3 I'm finding both Healing Spring and Bear Stance extrememly useful for healing through condi barrages. So removing the synergy... meh. If they thought that solved any over-cleansing problems, they were dead wrong and should be berated for having thought that in the first place.

What seems more consistent is idea that the shout-buffing runes allowed rangers to actually help teammates. But given that the primary problem with bunker druid was its ability to easily 1vX a side node, the group synergy problem doesn't seem like that much of a problem. In fact due to the way Celestial Avatar (doesn't) work, druid never felt nearly as game-changing to have on point for a team like a tempest.

The only possible goal that they could rationally have been going for was to make Beastmastery a bad idea for support/bunker druids to go for. In this, I believe they wholly succeeded. They also further gutted druid pets, indicating that they believed that druid pet output was somehow an issue. The problem with this approach is that this kind of discussion was nowhere when it comes to making the shout/command reclassification. ANet doesn't seem sly enough to misdirect us on balance issues, so I have a hard time believing that they intended to destroy pet/Beastmastery utility for druids when they did this.

I'm convinced that no current ANet dev mains (or even mildly enjoys) a ranger. Their treatment of druid just makes no sense, and we've now passed the 1-year mark on the command reclassification with nothing rational to show for it.

@voltaicbore.8012 said:

@Krispera.5087 said:

@voltaicbore.8012 said:

@"Kodama.6453" said:

I am not exactly sure why they reworked command skills again away from being shouts, tho.

About the stat penalty on druid pets: Which other trade off would you personally prefer over that?I thought it made sense gameplaywise. The pet was adding damage to the druid without having to invest stats, but druid isn't about damage in the first place.

It is supposed to be a support spec. And with the new philosophy for elite specs that they should give up something from core to get their new mechanic, they needed to install something for druid. Since the druid has just been an upgrade for ranger, the elite spec didn't trade anything.So what do you think would have been a better trade off instead here?

@"Kodama.6453" said:

About the stat penalty on druid pets: Which other trade off would you personally prefer over that?I thought it made sense gameplaywise. The pet was adding damage to the druid without having to invest stats, but druid isn't about damage in the first place.

It is supposed to be a support spec. And with the new philosophy for elite specs that they should give up something from core to get their new mechanic, they needed to install something for druid. Since the druid has just been an upgrade for ranger, the elite spec didn't trade anything.So what do you think would have been a better trade off instead here?

Druid already had a tradeoff - terrible offensive capacity in exchange for being locked very, very hard into the support niche. The only other elite spec I can think of that is so limiting is DH, which I can't imagine using for anything other than offensive output. However, DH is so good at that, that I think being cornered into the DPS niche works for DH. Even in the heyday of the immortal bunker druid, the problem was never about how easily a druid could kill you, but how impossible it was for you (and two of your teammates) to kill the druid. In that sense, the self-supportiveness and endless reset capacity was actually the problem, not the offensive capacity.

The more fundamental problem with tradeoffs and rangers is that ANet never formally acknowledged the pet design as a failure. Instead, they happily continue to pretend that pets fully made up for the stat penalty they gave rangers, while ignoring the well-documented failure of pets to do anything close to that. Even today, take a pet to the special forces training ground, and watch it chase a golem in a circle... and never, not once, land a hit. So all those folks out there dying to ranger pets... that means you can't even move like the training golem does - it literally walks at the same speed in the same path, and the pets still can't hit it. Essentially, the tradeoff all rangers take is having a pet in the first place. That's an automatic dps loss unless you're a merged soulbeast.

Merged soulbeast is of course the one exception, and that's why I think the one-pet-only tradeoff actually works for that spec. Druid already got precious little value out of its pets, and so the "tradeoff" didn't really do anything other than move pets from "bad" to "nearly unsable" in spvp for druids.

@Kodama.6453 said:About the stat penalty on druid pets: Which other trade off would you personally prefer over that?

Personally I would have given druid a similar treatment as they did to soulbeast instead of the pet stat loss: Replace F4 (pet swap) by the avatar. They could even use the opportunity to stow the pet while in avatar form (ironically the druid might benefit a lot from such thing).

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Kodama.6453 said:About the stat penalty on druid pets: Which other trade off would you personally prefer over that?

It would certainly improve but it would not completely solve the problem.Slb has a class mechanic who works with pets so that's okay, instead CA is a class mechanic who has nothing to do with how Ranger was designed, you should remove both pets and give to Druid a mechanic entirely dedicated to team support.This would require Beastmastery to be reworked so that it can work without pets.

@Revolution.5409 said:

@"Dadnir.5038" said:Personally I would have given druid a similar treatment as they did to soulbeast instead of the pet stat loss: Replace F4 (pet swap) by the avatar. They could even use the opportunity to stow the pet while in avatar form (ironically the druid might benefit a lot from such thing).

The issue with removing the pet is more than just "beastmastery". A lot of traits in other traitlines "need" the pet and the ranger's downstate isn't designed to work without it.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Revolution.5409 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:Personally I would have given druid a similar treatment as they did to soulbeast instead of the pet stat loss: Replace F4 (pet swap) by the avatar. They could even use the opportunity to stow the pet while in avatar form (ironically the druid might benefit a lot from such thing).

Technically, SB shows that most of the things don't "Need" a pet since when merged the pet modifiers just go onto your character instead (Which, admittedly, makes the spec even stronger due to it meaning that Condi's use your stats as well as getting things like Attack of Opportunity from GS 2) with only some exceptions, such as Signets not providing extra benefit to compensate for the loss of pet procs/stats, "Protect Me" doesn't give barrier and of course "Search and Rescue"/Lick Wounds don't work (Well, LW does, but that's because going down unmerges SB so you have your pet back).

Which is one of the weird things about Ranger in general. If Druid lost the pet... It'd end up being a huge buff for them because of how these things interact. Including Beastmastery's 150 all stats, 300 Ferocity and 30% movement speed from its lesser traits and how Druid isn't hugely reliant on their pet anyway.

Thus, in order to make petless Druid (And any other E-Specs, potentially even SB itself) work all that needs to happen is for the few skills that don't work properly to somehow function. I.e. "Protect Me" grants its Barrier and "Search and Rescue"/Lick Wounds function somehow (To be honest, these could simply utilize a temporary "Pet" summon like an Astral animal comes to revive for Druid that has similar stats to a normal pet and can be killed like a normal pet - Though this "technically" would be a buff since while Lick Wounds revives your pet if its dead, it doesn't fully heal it meaning that for a normal Ranger with a pet a damaged pet before being downed makes it easier to stop Lick Wounds while summoning a full health "Pet" upon activation circumvents that)

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Revolution.5409 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:Personally I would have given druid a similar treatment as they did to soulbeast instead of the pet stat loss: Replace F4 (pet swap) by the avatar. They could even use the opportunity to stow the pet while in avatar form (ironically the druid might benefit a lot from such thing).

Downstate is not a problem, recreating a Spirit version of a pet that helps to raise the character is not difficult, but otherwise I don't really see any other option that would solve the problem the best way, Druid himself was given to Ranger because at the beginning Ranger's class mechanic was a problem in Dungeon and Fractals, Ranger until the release of HoT was never Meta pve.Half of the problems in this profession come from a mechanic who will never fully adapt to this game, a re-elaboration at least for the specializations is necessary.

@Taril.8619 said:Which is one of the weird things about Ranger in general. If Druid lost the pet... It'd end up being a huge buff for them because of how these things interact. Including Beastmastery's 150 all stats, 300 Ferocity and 30% movement speed from its lesser traits and how Druid isn't hugely reliant on their pet anyway.

It is because SB's beastmode is coded like that, not because not having a pet garantie that the stats goes to the ranger. It might be a little difference but it's a significant one. The avatar do not benefit from traits the same way the beastmode does.

@Revolution.5409 said:

@"Dadnir.5038" said:The issue with removing the pet is more than just "beastmastery". A lot of traits in other traitlines "need" the pet and the ranger's downstate isn't designed to work without it.

While I do not totally agree with your view on the ranger pre HoT, because despite it's awfull reputation due to the infamous "bearbow" the ranger was objectively quite good in PvE. I do Agree that half of the problems in all the professions of the game come from inadapted mechanics. Be it the ranger's pet, the necromancer's focus on debilitating conditions, the mesmer's shatter and so on, a lot of mechanics in game are ill suited for PvE.