Project exa.3204

I'd settle for just a blue or red crab. Or a squad of 5x pocket raptors -Eros of Ascalon.

I believe Taste for Danger is based off base stats (Rune / Amulet). I don't think it was ever intended to multiply, because imagine how janky that could be once you start staking multipliers? The most you'll get out of Taste of Danger using expertise appears to be Valkyrie Amulet and Rune of the Warrior in sPvP. Other traits (like Beastmastery trait for SB merged or natural fortitude) are effects, and not part of really the base stats for a ranger. I don't think it's broken, it just doesn't give us the multiplier that we'd love -Eros of Ascalon

Good news everyone, the Untamed balance fixes were included in the latest patch! -Eros of Ascalon

[&DQQILyEpICp4AHgAlgEAAMIAAAC4AAAAwAAAABM5ASkAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=] Weapons: Shortbow + Dagger / Horn Rune: Elementalist, Amulet: Carrion Sigils: Exposure / Doom on both Pets: Bristleback / Siamoth This is probably the lowest intensity soulbeast build I've got. It's very gimmicky for PvP, decently strong in PvE, but still very fun when you play it. This build relies upon preloading your attacks and then bursting somebody with a lot of bleeds. In General: You want to use Bristleback the most. Merging with it and using it's 2nd skill gives your next 5x attacks bleed. When you preload Sharpen Stones you get 10x attacks that bleed, giving you a total of 15x bleeds to apply on the next few attacks. When you're ready to attack you want to pop One Wolf Pack (for double attacks) and Vulture Stance (for extra poison) Hidden Barbs gives you another +33% bleed damage. Sharpened Edges gives you additional +bleed on crit chance. Ambidexterity gives you +additional condition damage Predator's Cunning gives you life siphon on poison damage Oppressive Singularity gives you 10% more condition duration when your enemy is at lower HP than you Double Arc (Dagger #2) gives your next 2x attacks poison Crippling Shot (Shortbow #4) gives your next 3x attacks bleeding This is a basic rotation, and you can preload your skills up to 30seconds in advance Merge with Bristleback -> Sharpened Spines -> Sharpened Edges -> 10 seconds before you're ready to burst: Use Crippling Shot (Shortbow #4) for 3x extra bleeds before swapping to axe/horn for 5x extra vulnerability Use Double Arc (Dagger #2) for extra 2x poison When going into combat: Horn #5 (for the might + condition damage) -> Horn #4 (for the 16x attacks and dropping all your conditions) -> Vulture Stance -> One Wolf Pack Primal Cry (for quickness and extra bleeds) -> Rain of Spikes (for AoE dmg and bleeds) When you're between burstings you're just kiting and using shortbow. I say this is LI because you can preload 75% of your attacks before going into combat. Hope this helps! -Eros of Ascalon

One thing I'm glad to see is at least some (mostly) positive and critical feedback on untamed here. Untamed is overdue for tweaking. but it's not nearly as bad as it seemed in the betas and first few weeks of EoD for PvP. Also interesting is the variety of different builds people are trying with it! -Eros of Ascalon

Your actual attacks with the bow (not the condition damage) are strike damage. Without changing your gear from condi to power, you'd find your hits and crits hitting a just a little harder with the bonus while still doing the same amount of condition damage. -Eros of Ascalon

We all know there is only the one true goddess, Melandru! -Eros of Ascalon

I saw you beasted it this season! I tried tons of different combos throughout the season but found myself using GS/Hammer the most. LB/GS was also strong but I just felt like for LB/GS I'd rather go a different specialization. I feel like the cantrip barrier still needs to be a little stronger. I like the #1 because of its 1 second cd and potential to apply lots of weakness, or vulnerability stacks right before a nice ambush. The #3 I didn't really try because it just seemed overshadowed by the other two. Also agreed middle traits are flexible, I went with the #1 again because I was leaning hard into the disables, which I think should still apply on pet disable too (but that might be a bit of a stretch) Hammer having weak defensives is one of the biggest drawbacks to the new weapon. Overreliance on disables doesn't seem like a fair tradeoff for the lack of native defensive support. I agree with both sentiments about both forms needing some kind of tweak. It just needs a little extra oomph for more people to pick it up. A block would be most ideal, the last attack on the #1 seems like the best place to do it if not reworking one of the other skills. Hammer #4 is my least favorite skill. I agree it definitely needs something extra. Needs a damage buff when pet unleashed for certain. When pet unleashed it applies 3 conditions, including immob, but none of them contribute to disables. Ideally I'd like to see something like a disable thrown in (such as stun in first hit radius 120) to make it more worth it. When ranger unleashed, the 20% damage multiplier is cool....but I also agree that it needs something to be more reliable. -Eros of Ascalon

Certainly! I posted the template in a different comment somewhere, but I have it included below. At the end of the season I ended up in the top 250, but I feel like I could have gone even further if I wasn't so lazy! Hammer / Greatsword Untamed [&DQQgKwgvSBV5AHgAExsTGxkblgG7ALgADxsPGy4TKSsAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=] Marauder Amulet + Rune of the Eagle Cleansing and exploitation sigils on hammer, cleansing and exposure on greatsword -Eros of Ascalon

You don't have to use weapon swap, but you really miss out on a lot of skills if you don't. If you have sigils that apply different effects (such as 5x stacks of vuln on swap, or might, or next 3 attacks crit) you generally want to maximize your rotations to capitalize on your skills and sigil usage. For PvE this doesn't matter as much unless you're raiding, but if you PvP it becomes more important. If you blow all of your cooldowns for longbow, you're essentially stuck auto attacking until something like #2 recharges. You can swap weapons to keep up the DPS or go defensive until it's time to swap back to longbow for a big attack. If you really want to be all ranged you could make your secondary shortbow or axe / something and it would still be more effective than just LB. -Eros of Ascalon

If you're LB and want to do ranged, absolutely GS should be your other go-to weapon. Longbow doesn't give you nearly enough defense when you're being pressured. GS gives you the block, counterattack, interrupt / daze, and swoop to disengage. There's also the juicy crits from Maul (especially if you're specced for 2h mastery). Hammer can be good but not as your only defensive weapon. It has no blocks and would rely too heavily on one of its Cc moves (Knockdown, daze, blind, cripple, etc) to really count on getting you out of a tight spot. -Eros of Ascalon

It does. If someone attacks you while shocking aura is up you get 4 seconds of cd with fervent force every 60 seconds (or every 2 heals) -Eros of Ascalon

Boonbeast back on the menu?!

Totally forgot about white tiger, that's how forgettable it is. Also agreed it's just a worse HoT tiger. You get an aegis and a shadowstep as a tradeoff against regular tiger's leap and big bleed attack. The shadowstep is cool in theory, but it's weak compared to smokescale's and not worth taking. I actually find myself saving my skills more than blowing all cds immediately. My utility bar is pretty much all situational skills, while I'm mostly just fighting with my weapons or through my pet control. [&DQQgKwgvSBV5AHgAExsTGxkblgG7ALgADxsPGy4vKSsAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=] if you want to see where the differences might be? Hope this helps! -Eros of Ascalon

My opinion seems to be quite different than the others here so far, because I think with a 1 second cooldown that an Untamed should be leashing / unleashing more frequently. At the very least every 15 seconds so you're always capitalizing on your ambush skills. I've honestly found myself leashing / unleashing very quickly (sometimes 2-5 seconds in between) in the middle of combat. Below are a few situational times you may want to shift power. When I unleash pet: When I need projectile blocks from Enveloping Haze. When I need the damage reduction. When I want combo field-poison or to apply weakness from finishers inside Enveloping Haze. When I need to close the distance between my pet and the enemy with Venomous Outburst. When someone is up in my face, and I need to rip boons or slow them down with Rending Vines Note: If you want the slow from Rending Vines to apply you have to disable the enemy first. When the hammer skill I want to use requires pet to be unleashed for the effect I want (such as daze, knockdown, immob, etc). When I want a defensive boon from one of my cantrips. When I unleash ranger: Whenever my ambush skill is ready. When I'd rather have the damage boost than damage reduction. Note: I find myself spending most of my time unleashed ranger unless pressured into defensive mode. When I want to use my core pet skills. Sometimes I use a pet skill (such as smokescale interrupt) then immediately follow up by unleashing pet so I can do some other combo like I described above. When I want an offensive boon from one of my cantrips. When the hammer skill I want to use requires ranger to be unleashed for the effect I want (such as 20% damage bonus to disabled, blind, or general bigger hits on my skills) I almost always try to be the aggressor under unleashed ranger, but it's so quick and easy to get the -10% damage when you see your opponent winding up an attack. If you have the option of taking -10% damage in the middle of combat without sacrificing too much DPS (like if you're in between cooldowns or generally on the defensive) definitely take it. The same goes for if you're fighting defensively and you see an opening, you want to take advantage of that +15% strike bonus for your attack, then shift back into defensive mode. -Eros of Ascalon

I've been one of the harshest critics of untamed, but I was committed this season to playing nothing but it. I was also committed to playing hammer since I was convinced the optimal build would somehow incorporate hammer. I placed in silver 2(3-7 in placements) this season because I was trying all kinds of different builds to see what worked best for my playstyle, and finally I settled on Greatsword / Hammer. This is another longer post, so I'll start off with the things I think can still be done to improve Untamed: Balance Recommendations Hammer skills when unleashed pet still needs to be buffed. It's still just too weak to be playing for long, even defensively. There has to be a better tradeoff than the up to 100%+ damage reduction (in the case of Thump vs Unleashed Thump). I'd even be content if Thump was buffed and Unleashed Thump was nerfed. The last attack on hammer #1 should be doing more...it's just weak and promotes the non-usage of the last actual chain attack. Ideally it should have some kind of defensive thing like vigor or a block, or an offensive thing like weakness or blind...anything really. Pets still seem weaker than they should be, given the spec. It doesn't need to be a major buff, just something extra for speccing into the Untamed traitline at all vs playing core or something else. Vow of the Unleashed is the easiest thing to modify to "You and your pet _____ while unleashed" because the damage and defense modifiers don't actually apply to pets. I still think other skills like Restorative Strikes also need to apply to "You and your pet" I also still think there needs to be a better way to bring pets back into action faster, especially to bring non-standard pets into play. Natures Shield needs to be slightly better for it to be more viable. Their barrier is kind of weak and not worth really speccing too heavily in. Making the radius of Rending Vines slightly larger will make Corrupting Vines much more playable. With a radius of 180, the only reason an Untamed would spec into this is if they probably wanted the boon removal on unleashed ambush. Perilous Gift needs to be just a little better to be more viable. Right now what it promotes, is waiting until you're 90%_ dead before trying to pop your gift (to maximize your 33% missing health heal bonus)--then doing some kind of clutch combo to pull out the W. Someone better than me can probably pull it off, but the vast majority of rangers most likely can't. It needs just *a little extra something* like regen or protection or 40% heal. The only way to make this more viable right now is to use spec into cantrip barriers, and for reasons above that's still less viable than anything else. Pretty much everything else I think is actually fine. Untamed opens up quite a lot of options for build combinations. I found a GS/Hammer brawler to be best for my playstyle, but have seen bow or axe Untamed wrecking it. Some pets could be buffed in general to see more play (like giving additional stats to pets that have weaker #2's). This isn't inherent to Untamed though. Things I've Learned / Tips for sPvP: In general - The frequency of how often you're leashing & unleashing depends on the fight that you're in. It's very adaptable. I almost always open while unleashed ranger, then switch up depending on what I'm fighting. S Unleashed pets skills are incredibly versatile. Really take advantage of leashing / unleashing to get the maximum effect of your pets. Unleashed pet #3 blocking projectiles and giving a combo field-poison is definitely one of the best things about untamed. Use it to cancel any projectile heavy class for 5 seconds. Always take advantage of the combo finishers for weakness / area weakness Smokescale is absurdly powerful with untamed. You can deliver a mobile projectile block & combo field posion with smokescale's teleport. You can provide an AoE stealth with any weapon set by dropping a smokefield -> unleash pet -> rending vines. With smoke assault, you can even deliver a rending vines by switching from leashed / unleashed in the middle of the smokescales attack. I'd even go as far as to say it would probably be just a little too good if any of the changes I listed above come without an equivalent smokescale nerf. On the new pets Siege turtle - gives your team a total of 9 whole seconds of projectile block without factoring in Fervent Force for how often you can block projectiles. Phoenix - has the potential to be really cool, but has garbage tier vitality. I really like the versatile abilities and increased power compared to other birds, but it's got 12khp and sucks bananas for a PvP pet. This wouldn't be as much of a problem if the changes I mentioned to bring pets back into action faster was resolved. Wallow - I have no idea what the use case for this pet would be. It's like the worst parts of and siamoth combined together as a supportive pe On cantrips - These are actually fine. They're not really worth barriers, but they add a lot of pzazz and flexibility for different types of builds. Hammer - #1 thing if you're playing hammer, is that you REALLY need to know how to chain attacks while leashing / unleashing. Treat this more like a weaver. Whatever attack and mode you start out with is what will apply on hit for a given skill. With a 1 second cd on unleash you can shift in the middle of an attack to apply whatever you want to apply. Knockdown (Thump) then 20% damage boost to enemy (Unleashed Wild Swing)? Change your style up depending on what you're fighting. Strike-heavy users should receive Unleashed Overbearing Smash for the blind, while spell-heavies should get Overbearing Smash for the daze. Save your leaps (like Thump / Unleashed Thump) for when you've got an ambush lined up. This applies especially when you're fighting kite-heavy classes. Bonus points if you can take advantage of a combo field. Since all hammer skills are AoE's, they become more effective when fighting against classes that stealth. This applies especially to trappers when you otherwise lose targeting between their traps. Greatsword / Hammer - I'm writing up just a little more on this combination because I found it particularly effective for me. Euratein was the first one to post the build and I just modified my runes / traits / amulets. This combination really shines in team fights. It does well on sidenodes, but the best benefit you provide to teams comes from canceling or Cc'ing enemies. If you're pairing greatsword with hammer, you should always be thinking about what combo you can pull off next. Counterattack and Hit Bash before swapping to hammer give 2x different ways to take advantage of the 20% multiplier on Unleashed Wild Swing. You have 2x leaps available (between swapping weapons) to close the distance before an ambush. If you use Unnatural Traversal (which I recommend for Gs/H) you have a third way to deliver whatever payload you want. You can time this to deliver anything from a Maul at 900 range, a daze or interrupt, followed by an ambush. I pretty much always use this when unleashed ranger for the might, but if you're in defensive mode you can shadowstep to a far away enemy for regen as well. Forest's Fortification should almost always be followed by some kind of AoE attack to reduce the cd's as much as possible. Fervent Force helps offset this even if you can't. Fervent Force with Gs/H gives up to 12 seconds cooldown on your skills. Counterattack, Hit Bash, Thump, Overbearing Smash, each reduce the cd's of your equipped skills by 2 seconds. There are countless rotations that can be run off this premise & reduce the cd's of the things you're trying to combo from -Eros of Ascalon

The excerpt above was taken directly from my conversations with anet employees, and includes all of the planned balance changes coming to Untamed over the next several patches. -Eros of Ascalon

Solid updates for ranger this patch, glad anet focused on fixing the important issues like siege turtle pet bubble!

The skill is not broken, but it does have a high learning curve (like with Untamed as a whole) You need to be able to plan when you're going to use unnatural traversal. If you know you're not within 900 range or that there are objects and/or potential pathing problems in the way...it is your duty to reposition yourself so you can line up that teleport -> then ambush. If you pop it on its own with no target you either get 5x stacks of might or 1x regen. If you hit your target you get the boons and give them vulnerability. The skill is fine, but I'd even be in favor of making it a targeted skill only. -Eros of Ascalon

Hammer / Greatsword I REALLY tried to work when I first started on untamed. Felt like it should be right, especially with unnatural traversal, but I just couldn't land any good combos. Now I'm able to land much better combos so I think I'll give this another shot! Below is what I've been running with the last several games. Meant to stay under permafury with extra high crits. I use axe / horn to ramp up my might really quickly then go in for the kills with hammer combos. Lacks on the 1v1 fighting but does really well in team fights and has good cleave for downs http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POwEI6MssAWHbjpycxi9JNWXy0qA-zZAPkeVBFMBqYIIoB -Eros of Ascalon

I've actually warmed up a lot more to Untamed over the last two weeks. Also using hammer since I'm still convinced the best untamed builds will use it. I'm finding more and more now there are TONS of combos that can be pulled off. I still feel like pets should get a bit of a buff and maybe hammer damage just normalized, but the burst is definitely there. It does much better in team fights than it does in 1:1s. Might make a follow up post when I hit plat. Currently working up through G3, doing nothing but trial and error with untamed builds till I hit this one with Untamed / Wilderness Survival / Skirmishing -Eros of Ascalon

As a lifelong ranger I typically look forward to the new specs and finding builds that compliment the new traits. With untamed it really feels like Anet cobbled together a bunch of things from different specs and said "Here you go, figure it out. Do something with your pet." This is unfortunate because untamed has so much potential but it's completely overshadowed by other specs. This is going to be a longer post, so I'll just start with what I think can be done to "fix" untamed. Most of these changes are all related to the pets and are only meant to bring untamed to a more even playing field. How to Fix Untamed Normalize the hammer damage to the same level as when unleashed. The differences in secondary skills (daze, shockwave, etc) while unleashed can stay. This is the bare minimum to just make hammer viable. Give pets increased armor while pet unleashed. While not unleashed they should keep their same stats, but if we're expected to juggle power between the pet and ranger they need to last longer or something else needs to be done to compensate. If you're using cantrip for the heal, your pet is 100% dead because there is no healing for pets in the untamed traitline. Bring dead pets back into action sooner. Either reduce the cd time for their recharge, or make unleashed imbue a small amount of HP to a dead pet to bring it back online. They're dying way too quick with lack of pet healing. Make pet disables count towards Debilitating Blows, Enhancing Impact, and Fervent Force. "If you or your pet disable a foe" should be the hallmark of untamed. Fix Perilous Gift to give SOMETHING to your pet. There's literally no reason any ranger would want to take the cantrip heal over any other heal that will actually restore hp to their pet as well. Rework skills that only apply to the ranger. Restorative Strikes should be "A percentage of the strike damage you deal heals you and your pet" for the same reasons. Problems in sPvP (on the skills and weapon in general) Hammer must be used to take full advantage of unleashed or if you have any plans to do a Cc oriented Untamed build. You can still use other core weapons, and each has their own disables....but nowhere near enough for the disable traitlines to be worth it. So if you plan to try and use Enhancing Impact or Fervent Force, you'll need to use a hammer. Hammer damage is hamstrung by unleashed. Seriously, the base damage of hammer is almost 50% less when the ranger is not unleashed. This seems to actively want to encourage being in ranger unleashed form for damage and pet unleashed for Cc, but what was supposed to happen here? Rangers expected to use other weapons until its time to unleash or else lose up to 50% sustain just for their pets to have 3 extra moves? The alternative is not to use hammer at all, and if you do that with unleashed what are you getting that isn't there for core, SB, or druid? Life siphon on weapon skill #1 on unleashed ambush is cool in theory, and seems to imply that rangers should be leashing / unleashing frequently if they want to siphon life. If you are using a weapon that has a chain of attacks for its #1 then you're likely not going to proc your unleashed ambush unless you are unleashed right exactly before your #1 attack hits. Tested this with greatsword and hammer, and if you're just leashing / unleashing in the middle of combat but hit during one of those chain attacks....you don't get that life siphon damage. Untamed has weak condition management which forces rangers to have to spec into the same tired traits like WS/BM to compensate....which means WS/BM are still staple. I was hoping untamed would give way to some other traitlines that are more viable, but the conditions and survival skills are just too good to not bring with the distinct lack of management on untamed. (on pets) Pets as they currently exist are obsolete when fighting the new specs. Almost every other new spec feels like they can kill a classical ranger pet in very few moves, and there isn't a single pet that can stand up to a jade mech. This must be a mistake for a ranger spec that is supposed to rely heavily on transferring power between itself and the pet. With the untamed heal not providing any support, and almost nothing but cantrip barriers give any survivability to pets. If a pet dies you can still unleash but you as mentioned above with the hamstrung damage, if you're still juggling unleash you lose all the new spec's Cc and sustain. The new pets are "meh" at best, and at worst they're wallows. They all seem to be half something, and half something else...but those two halves create weak combinations that make rangers go back to the classics like smokescale, jacaranda, drake, etc. -Eros of Ascalon

Point is just that if they're a 7 year player they've probably gotten away with things for many years without any consequences. The players themselves don't need to be any good.

Anet really hasn't ever done JACK about cheaters from what i've seen. I think this post and the "What is This? post help bring awareness to this ridiculous mesmer hack/exploit, and having the topics be high profile on the forums might just get at least one anet employee out of their padded swivel chairs to do something. The guy that was duo queue'ing with the hacker from earlier told me he was a 7 year player and had no idea the mesmer he was queueing with, which had the same name (laflame vs la flame) and similar account names, was exploiting.

Crab & Phoenix