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Soulbeast is not an issue. "Sic 'Em!" is.


Shroud.2307

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If you don't want to read my explanations you can skip to the part below the line. I think if you're asking for Soulbeast to be nerfed however, reading it all may help to inspire some thoughts.

I think everyone can agree that Soulbeast is capable of doing a colossal amount of damage in a very short frame of time, often while having a significant range advantage. But what no one seems to agree on is what needs to be nerfed. It's always just a demand for Soulbeast in general to be nerfed.

So for the sake of discussion and education, I'd like to explain why I think ANet has allowed it to exist as it has for so long.

Support builds in WvW are equally as broken as many of the roaming and burst builds. Just because they don't do damage doesn't mean they aren't OP. Many times I've personally witnessed Firebrands literally taking up to a minute to die while 10+ players are attacking them (and for clarity, I don't mean just standing there and dancing in circles, but rather trying to escape from a group). Unless you're fully spec'd in to damage, many of the support/bunker builds like Firebrand, Scrapper, Chronomancer, etc. will be impossible to kill in a 1v1 or even Xv1.

With that said however, WvW is a team game. Although roaming is an aspect of WvW (and an important one), balance in that area is incredibly difficult to achieve. No matter what you do to roaming builds, it is likely to effect zergs as well. And historically, ANet has shown that they will allow roaming builds to exist as they are until they're strong enough to effect a larger scale. As a roamer, longbow Soulbeast is a +1 like a Thief that's most effective at adding to a fight when a player(s) has used multiple cooldowns. In zergs, it can fulfill a role as a sniper, but it is pretty clear how ineffective that is the majority of the time. It can work, but it requires a great deal of co-ordination and often multiple longbow Soulbeasts working together to bring their targets down. Therefore it does not effect the large scale.


"Sic 'Em!" increases pet damage by 40% and when merged, has the same effect on the Soulbeast. 40% is an absolutely enormous damage increase for a single button push. It is a build defining skill for longbow Soulbeasts and contributes significantly to it's burst potential. However, it does not effect core Ranger or Druid, only Soulbeast. Therefore, I believe the most appropriate way to reduce the lethality of Soulbeast without effecting Ranger or Druid, and without making Soulbeast ineffective as a specialization, is to do the following;Reduce the percentage increase to either 10 or 15%, or do not allow "Sic 'Em!" to effect the Soulbeast while merged at all. Soulbeast, and Ranger in general, still have many damage modifiers and will still be capable snipers without this skill. It will also promote some diversity in that it will allow players who want to snipe to choose Soulbeast and players who want to play Longbow but want to 1v1 to choose core Ranger.

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@"SpellOfIniquity.1780" said:If you don't want to read my explanations you can skip to the part below the line. I think if you're asking for Soulbeast to be nerfed however, reading it all may help to inspire some thoughts.

I think everyone can agree that Soulbeast is capable of doing a colossal amount of damage in a very short frame of time, often while having a significant range advantage. But what no one seems to agree on is what needs to be nerfed. It's always just a demand for Soulbeast in general to be nerfed.

So for the sake of discussion and education, I'd like to explain why I think ANet has allowed it to exist as it has for so long.

Support builds in WvW are equally as broken as many of the roaming and burst builds. Just because they don't do damage doesn't mean they aren't OP. Many times I've personally witnessed Firebrands literally taking up to a minute to die while 10+ players are attacking them (and for clarity, I don't mean just standing there and dancing in circles, but rather trying to escape from a group). Unless you're fully spec'd in to damage, many of the support/bunker builds like Firebrand, Scrapper, Chronomancer, etc. will be impossible to kill in a 1v1 or even Xv1.

With that said however, WvW is a team game. Although roaming is an aspect of WvW (and an important one), balance in that area is incredibly difficult to achieve. No matter what you do to roaming builds, it is likely to effect zergs as well. And historically, ANet has shown that they will allow roaming builds to exist as they are until they're strong enough to effect a larger scale. As a roamer, longbow Soulbeast is a +1 like a Thief that's most effective at adding to a fight when a player(s) has used multiple cooldowns. In zergs, it can fulfill a role as a sniper, but it is pretty clear how ineffective that is the majority of the time. It can work, but it requires a great deal of co-ordination and often multiple longbow Soulbeasts working together to bring their targets down. Therefore it does not effect the large scale.


"Sic 'Em!" increases pet damage by 40% and when merged, has the same effect on the Soulbeast. 40% is an absolutely enormous damage increase for a single button push. It is a build defining skill for longbow Soulbeasts and contributes significantly to it's burst potential. However, it does not effect core Ranger or Druid, only Soulbeast. Therefore, I believe the most appropriate way to reduce the lethality of Soulbeast without effecting Ranger or Druid, and without making Soulbeast ineffective as a specialization, is to do the following;Reduce the percentage increase to either 10 or 15%, or do not allow "Sic 'Em!" to effect the Soulbeast while merged at all. Soulbeast, and Ranger in general, still have many damage modifiers and will still be capable snipers without this skill. It will also promote some diversity in that it will allow players who want to snipe to choose Soulbeast and players who want to play Longbow but want to 1v1 to choose core Ranger.

Agreed 100%. NO damage boost, even temp, should go above 20%. 40% is insane.

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Sic em and mauls damage modifiers need nerfs hard but ranger needs love in other areas to make it so it doesnt need reliance on ridiculously high damage modifiers and one trick burst builds to be viable pick in pvp again. Boteb above doesnt want those modifiers lowered but needs to think about how ranger will prob never see any significant buffs as long as it had things like sic em,maul and unstoppable union as a crutch.

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Sicc Em isn't a problem because it, literally isn't a problem.

What world-shaking balance impact does Sicc Em have? Compared to like the arc divider pre-nerf (and even now). The best dueling build for SB doesn't even use Sicc Em, showing the talent is an optional inclusion, not an OP mandatory one.

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Just dodge.

Sry I just had to say this ?

@Anput.4620 said:Sicc Em isn't a problem because it, literally isn't a problem.

What world-shaking balance impact does Sicc Em have? Compared to like the arc divider pre-nerf (and even now). The best dueling build for SB doesn't even use Sicc Em, showing the talent is an optional inclusion, not an OP mandatory one.

I agree with Anput on this though.
Sic em cheese builds aren't so much a problem with warclaw now. Just like how every other invis 1-shot builds got indirectly nerfed.

I would think they need a shave on their mobility and disengagement tools. But almost all the top tier roaming classes like Mirage and holosmiths need that. So...?

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Don't forget longbow distance modifiers :open_mouth:TEH RANGE :open_mouth:and easy might stacks. :open_mouth:and of course there's the tankier boonier version :open_mouth:pets having their own stats :open_mouth:I won't mention attack of opportunity and others since it's been mentioned already.

OH I DID DOH :open_mouth: :open_mouth: :open_mouth: :open_mouth: :open_mouth:

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Let's just be honest here. Like Thief, everybody just wants Rangers to be deleted from the game. Ranger has never really had a solid place in WvW. Whenever it starts to get some kind of toe-hold, everybody cries for nerfs. People just plain hate Rangers. At this point we should just all call for Guardians, Warriors, and Elementalists to be the only classes that should play WvW. Warriors for their meat-shield, Elementalists for their DPS, and Guardians for their Heals. That's what everybody really wants. That "Holy Trinity" that makes all MMOs so wonderful to play. Anything else is just too....................weird.

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@"oOStaticOo.9467" said:Let's just be honest here. Like Thief, everybody just wants Rangers to be deleted from the game. Ranger has never really had a solid place in WvW. Whenever it starts to get some kind of toe-hold, everybody cries for nerfs. People just plain hate Rangers. At this point we should just all call for Guardians, Warriors, and Elementalists to be the only classes that should play WvW. Warriors for their meat-shield, Elementalists for their DPS, and Guardians for their Heals. That's what everybody really wants. That "Holy Trinity" that makes all MMOs so wonderful to play. Anything else is just too....................weird.

its more like rangers trying their hardest to convince ppl that their obviously op builds aren't bad for the game, and that we should look the other way since this class is a special victim with special privileges.

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Schrodinger's profession (ranger) is simultaneously one of the best and one of the worst professions in the gamemode, depending on who you ask. Oddly enough they were only voted the 4th most potent profession (after mesmer, engineer and warrior) on that roaming poll a while back.I'm all for nerfs to sic 'em, but I wouldn't nerf the ranger's ability to stack the other damage multipliers without improving the base damage on a lot of ranger skills that had the profession being basically irrelevant until the release of HoT. You'll see a lot less of them running around if a core week happens. The full power variant can be baited and destroyed and the boonbeast variant can be stalemated by a lot of other bruiser type builds. This is just another thread that's going to bait 8/9ths of the playerbase into shitting on a profession they're not built to deal with.

That said, for sic 'em I'd actually like to see the reveal portion be buffed to be a non-targeted AoE. Its really neat having a reveal utility on my bar that I can't use because the target is already stealthed. Most ranger attacks require a target, so I'd gladly trade that for the 40% damage.

~ Kovu

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There's already been a gazillion threads about this, everything has been said and I really don't think another one makes a difference.

Is Sic 'Em an issue? Sure, it's a crutch that should probably be redesigned into something better (Opening+Opportunity+Sic combos are gimmicks).Are unblockables an issue? Sure, it's lazy design and they should really adress the amount of blocks instead of stacking unblockables.

At the same time:

Damage is a problem overall now, a pew pew Ranger comming at people does tend to kill people in ambushes and people see that easily, but there are tons of classes with just stupid burst now, chewing through even 3.5k AR as if it didn't exist. So it is an overall damage balance problem and not a Ranger or Sic 'Em problem.

The other side of Sic 'Em being a crutch is that it's more or less the only thing the entire class has going for it by now. Everything else has been nerfed into oblivion and it has always been a class that few players want to team up with. If you take Sic 'Em away other classes will outshine the only thing Ranger does somewhat uniquely or at some sort of peak level in terms of niches.

So there are a ton of things to do before adressing Sic 'Em or the class. Unblockables overall, damage balance overall, some sort of functional role for that class as whole. When that is done Sic 'Em will neither be an issue so it can remain, nore a problem to completely nerf out of the game. While they're at it, CC too, since almost every gimmick burst build relies on some sort of CC setup now and things would be wildly different if you had to work a bit more to setup your CC/burst attacks. The normative movement (stab) versus control balance is also completely out of whack.

I think the mode/game as a whole would benefit greatly from an comeplete overhaul of the effects systems since there is just way too much layered over and over now. It's just a spam of everything from dmg% stacks to boons/conditions and effects. I bet if they adressed that, the server performance would also be healthier as it now has to calculate all those layers of effect/counter/effect/counter/effect/counter.

That is another reason that the mode is so punishing towards new players now - because there are such wild performance differences in certain builds - so not only is the gap larger in experience and ability as well as the burst being so punishing to new players but the knowledge of what builds work is also a major factor because you have to build in all those overpowered cross effects so making some minor mistake in terms of traits and stats/bonuses comepletely breaks a build. If we're staying on the Ranger, then companions defense is one such example. However, it's only really useful to adress it in a complete overhaul where Anet sits down and lays out plans for what sort of abilities and effects should be scarce in terms of power/uptime balance.

The system as a whole has become too complicated for Anet to balance, so reeling it back and formulating a plan is the way to go forward.

 

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@subversiontwo.7501 said:So there are a ton of things to do before adressing Sic 'Em or the class. Unblockables overall, damage balance overall, some sort of functional role for that class as whole. When that is done Sic 'Em will neither be an issue so it can remain, nore a problem to completely nerf out of the game.

I pretty much agree with this. It really is a common sense issue here, balance overall is way out of whack.That said, I would not argue against a damage reduction of Sic' Em for a soulbeast and/or duration reduction.

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@GUFF.5692 said:

@subversiontwo.7501 said:So there are a ton of things to do before adressing Sic 'Em or the class. Unblockables overall, damage balance overall, some sort of functional role for that class as whole. When that is done Sic 'Em will neither be an issue so it can remain, nore a problem to completely nerf out of the game.

I pretty much agree with this. It really is a common sense issue here, balance overall is way out of whack.That said, I would not argue against a damage reduction of Sic' Em for a soulbeast and/or duration reduction.

Balance and class design is made towards help players if they are getting carried with lots of powercreep momentum’s l, means game is doing and working how Anet wanted.

It’s a mmo for badies that failed other mmos due lack of skill mostly. They need powercreep momentum and gimmicks.It’s us that wanted more effort in skill combat that are wrong...

Just go check the builds dev play...

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Rework of Sic'em:

  • Vuln stacking during duration, pet inflicts 1 and you inflict 1,every attack in beastmode inflicts 2. That adds up to a 25% modifier fast but require a little setup.
  • Instead of increased movement speed your pet pulses unblockable cripple around it and if in beastmode around you in a 240 radius.
  • Increase cooldown to 40-50 seconds baseline, using this skill now also recharges your f2 pet ability.

Another thing that would help is the addition of longbow being baseline 1200 range with only Rapid Fire being able to reach at a hard cap of 1500. Any longer and the projectiles should disappear.

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While I agree with you OP; at the same time, this is WvW, and while roaming does play a part, the primary focus is on large group play and to a lesser extent small group play. Aside from harassing necros, Ranger is the 1 class that has least useful place in WvW. They don't need nerfs; nothing about them needs nerfs, not without drastically expanding their group play potential.

If they were that big of a problem and had "that much" burst potential as people claim; we'd see a lot more commanders being pinned sniped into dirt. We'd see a lot more small group battles being overturned or 1 sided with the presence of a soulbeast; but the thing is, we don't. We don't see it because they are not a big as issue as people claim. They only seem to be a problem for people when they encounter them 1 on 1 and seem to be in a build built for similar burst potential. I had a Soulbeast dump their entire burst into me on my tanky class, and they didn't crack 8k. I had another soulbeast unload on my on my somewhat glassy rev and I died instantly. Are Soulbeasts the problem? No, it's the player's gear and expecting to survive every single onslaught of attack regardless of what class or build they face.

Never have a I heard a commander or group later ask for someone to get on their Soulbeast (or summon a Soulbeast on the map), to join the squad to quickly take out the opposing commander, their healers, or troublesome necros. Why? Because they can't; they don't do enough damage; not compared to other classes in a group setting. A player will have far better lucky taking down "said" targets on a rev or ele. Even a condition burst will have much better luck.

Then for those asking, thinking, or assuming the Rangers range should be reduced; how effective are they really in close? Compare them to other classes that have 1200 range attacks and their capability in close... Ranger doesn't need their range reduced; if any thing it should be a trait or something available that it increases even further.

Basically what it comes down to; these roamers want to encounter someone like me on a glassy build and destroy me without much resistance; that's essentially what this is about. But because rangers have the capability to do that very thing to others wandering around in offensive builds, people cry nerfs.. go figure..

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@DeadlySynz.3471 said:

Then for those asking, thinking, or assuming the Rangers range should be reduced; how effective are they really in close? Compare them to other classes that have 1200 range attacks and their capability in close... Ranger doesn't need their range reduced; if any thing it should be a trait or something available that it increases even further.

Basically what it comes down to; these roamers want to encounter someone like me on a glassy build and destroy me without much resistance; that's essentially what this is about. But because rangers have the capability to do that very thing to others wandering around in offensive builds, people cry nerfs.. go figure..

How effective are rangers up close?Oh boy you've never met good boonbeasts have you.They are a lot tougher to fight against than LB/GS for many classes.And even then, LB/GS are also mighty dangerous up close.

Not that I'm too much affected by them because with the mount I can now enjoy decent fights against any of their builds now. This is a massive improvement compared to before so oh well, ain't going to be too greedy ?

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I don't think Ranger classes need nerfs. You modify Sic 'em and Maul, you will see Rangers vanishing from Roaming pretty quick. I think they should modify Smokescale pet's skill that won't allow invis for Soulbeasts. That would save everyone. It just makes sense to have invis on Thieves and Mesmers, as they take up skill slots. Having an additional skill slot from a pet for getting invis is kinda annoying.

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@"DeadlySynz.3471" said:While I agree with you OP; at the same time, this is WvW, and while roaming does play a part, the primary focus is on large group play and to a lesser extent small group play. Aside from harassing necros, Ranger is the 1 class that has least useful place in WvW. They don't need nerfs; nothing about them needs nerfs, not without drastically expanding their group play potential.

If they were that big of a problem and had "that much" burst potential as people claim; we'd see a lot more commanders being pinned sniped into dirt. We'd see a lot more small group battles being overturned or 1 sided with the presence of a soulbeast; but the thing is, we don't. We don't see it because they are not a big as issue as people claim. They only seem to be a problem for people when they encounter them 1 on 1 and seem to be in a build built for similar burst potential. I had a Soulbeast dump their entire burst into me on my tanky class, and they didn't crack 8k. I had another soulbeast unload on my on my somewhat glassy rev and I died instantly. Are Soulbeasts the problem? No, it's the player's gear and expecting to survive every single onslaught of attack regardless of what class or build they face.

Never have a I heard a commander or group later ask for someone to get on their Soulbeast (or summon a Soulbeast on the map), to join the squad to quickly take out the opposing commander, their healers, or troublesome necros. Why? Because they can't; they don't do enough damage; not compared to other classes in a group setting. A player will have far better lucky taking down "said" targets on a rev or ele. Even a condition burst will have much better luck.

Then for those asking, thinking, or assuming the Rangers range should be reduced; how effective are they really in close? Compare them to other classes that have 1200 range attacks and their capability in close... Ranger doesn't need their range reduced; if any thing it should be a trait or something available that it increases even further.

Basically what it comes down to; these roamers want to encounter someone like me on a glassy build and destroy me without much resistance; that's essentially what this is about. But because rangers have the capability to do that very thing to others wandering around in offensive builds, people cry nerfs.. go figure..

Ranger is my second most played profession so for the record, the purpose of the OP wasn't to get something nerfed that I don't play/don't understand. I only made this thread because it seems like every other day there's a thread about SB being problematic and everyone jumping on the bandwagon about how it needs to be nerfed. And as someone who dislikes anything being kneecapped just because a loud minority cry until they get their way, I thought I should state a less one sided opinion on how to fix it.

Though people have made some good points, I still believe longbow Soulbeast is overtuned as long as it is allowed to interact with "Sic 'Em!" as it currently does. And it does deserve the negative attention it has been getting because of this. Still, that doesn't mean a proper discussion on how to resolve it can't be had, unlike every other thread that has been here that has been nothing but one side of the party demanding blanket nerfs and the other half saying git gud.

In fact I wouldn't have felt the need to make a thread about this at all if it weren't for how many complaints about it there have been. I'm just tired of repeating myself so I thought I'd make a thread for it so I can fully explain myself and stop being a broken record. I don't think my solution is the only or the best solution, but I do think it's a lot more fair and logical than much of what other people have been asking to be nerfed.

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@"SpellOfIniquity.1780" said:nah, shut up with the nerfs already, its like you are hard trying because you dont play with ranger anymore.Now its the sicem, tomorrow will be the maul then the boonbeast and so on.

It happened to the druid that now is a complete useless mess of a class with no shred of goodwill behind its design, which makes the most unrewarding class to play in all this game.And now soulbeast so it becames as useless piece of junk.

I would appreciate if you all apologist of the nerfs, as much as you say "im a veteran of the ranger and blah blah" would give realistic alternatives to the nerfs if you know the class. You want a nerf to something the class must get another something of the same value in return. All of the ideas i read here are just trash terrible wich do not respect the original design of the skill or even the design of the class.

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It’s how it always is. Ranger gets something nice that makes them good at something and then it gets taken away. I remember when “heal as one” got a rework it was amazing for sharing boons between you and your pet, but then it got gutted a few days later.I expect the same to happen soon as it already has for Druid.

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