Drakyrie.5923

Problem - there is never a time where someone would mix trains from Trait line 1 and trait line 3. Whilst it is clear one line is for power and the other is for condi, this decision is already made by the player in their gear choice. Potential solution - merge trait lines 1 and 3 (and slightly weaken the effects so mixed builds don’t get to double dip) except for column 2. Create new traits to fill in the two gaps (see below). New Wicked Corruption - boost both strike and condition damage per stack of blight New Doom Approaches - boost power and condition damage while in shroud. Instead of pulsing every 3 seconds, it will pulse damage, poison and weakness every 3 applications of blight stacks to provide synergy with the elixirs. Septic corruption and cascading corruption would be replaced completely. Trait suggestions: Major adept to replace Septic Corruption - while between 5 and 15 stacks of blight, gain superspeed and if not effected by immobilize, cripple or chill gain might every interval. Grandmaster adept to replace Cascading Corruption - When you leave shroud you expel up to 10 stacks of blight but you don’t get that health difference back. This blast does damage and applies torment and cripple based on the amount of blight that was expelled.

Traits - Feel restrictive Unlike most trait lines, Virtuoso do not encourage engaging build crafting as they can’t really be mixed and matched as there is essentially a packaged condi line, power line, PvP line Traits that only trigger when you block or evade an attack feel horrible in PvE further restricting trait selection. Could these have a PvE related trigger as well? Some core Mesmer traits do nothing without illusions such as sharper images and empowered illusions. The former being especially problematic as it is a minor trait and cannot be avoided if using the dueling trait line. No interaction with the utilities/dagger Improved damage while being close feels contrary to how the rest of the spec is pushing the class Potential suggestions Blade skills could inherit the trait bonuses from Illusions, meaning they will bleed on crit, and do more damage with the respective traits. This means these core traits are not useless and makes space in the traits meaning there doesn’t need to be a rigid condi-line. Just like greatsword, sword attacks should be classed as blade skills too. Greatsword autoattack should be a blade skill too. Shatters/Blades - Does not meet expectations of being the shatter spec for mesmers Bladesongs don’t feel different enough from shatters as they share similar cooldowns, are single targets and have similar effects. Bladesong dissonance can be used without a target but harmony and sorrow can not There is no reward to using shatters with more blades as the damage scales linearly (other than wasting blades due to cooldowns) Potential suggestions Create more variety in the shatters, have one have no cool down to act as a weaker blade dump, have one be aoe targeted, have one be a directional targeted piercing attack Dagger - skills feel out of place Auto attack animation feels unnatural Long range weapon but blade call promotes standing in melee range Bladestorm at full range doesn’t use the full pulse Potential solution Bladestorm would feel better either as a stationary aoe target skill, or keep it as it is but use directional targeting like the Tempest’s Lighting Orb Bladecall shouldn’t be stronger in melee range, perhaps, it is one blade wider blade that shoots out in a straight line before returning. Or a blade that bounces between foes before returning A larger change, would be changing the Virtuoso’s attack animations to be like a orchestra conductor using the dagger as a conductor's baton, controlling a psychic dagger that’s slashing from from a distance similar to axe auto attack

The rework changes for Untamed were very good, I especially like the reduced cooldown on Unleashed and the new Ambush skills. Below are the issues that still bother me with Untamed Ambush - Hard to tell ambush is ready as the indicating icon is very small Add large UI indicators over the skill bar/unleashed icon Instead have it not on a cooldown but triggered after unleashing to ranger after using 1/all of the unleashed beast attacks Ranged attacks should also have the spores, especially shortbow and axe for the poison Window to do the ambush is very small, makes it hard to use shortbow or another attack before the ambush Gameplay - Does not fill a role in PvE that Soulbeast doesn’t already fill. Please give it some distinction other than DPS. Have cantrips share the boons/barrier with a trait. Add aegis and allow Untamed to give aegis/stab as a guardian alternative No reason to have pet unleashed for longer than 2 seconds to use all the abilities Vow of the Untamed should apply to your pet too Have Ferocious Symbiosis only work when unleashed, pet needs to be unleashed to give you the damage buff (would no longer refresh duration when triggered). Also means its not always the best thing to spam unleashed moves as soon as pet is unleashed so you have time to build up the stacks It is very tedious to have to activate the low cool down attacks for pets for them to do the same dps without the elite spec, especially in non-intense content like open world. Please think about adding auto-activate toggle for pet moves with less than 10 second cooldowns. Hammer still has no skill which buffs the pet unlike every other main hand weapon for Ranger

The good The theme, lore and idea of Untamed sound great to me and fits the fantasy role the ranger was missing. The Major Grandmaster 1 trait Fervent Force is the shining light in the Untamed and makes it a lot of fun to play. Utilities are thematic and capture the nature role better than even druid! Being able to control all the pet skills is a great change and is such a game changer on many pets it feels like it should be part of core ranger, maybe as a beastmastery trait. The idea of the spec is great for PvP The weird There are no skills on the hammer that directly interact with the pet at all, unlike every other ranger main-hand/two handed weapon. The Beastmastery trait “2 handed training” doesn’t include hammer, even though the disable effect fits it perfectly Pet swap with an unleashed pet doesn’t change unleashed pet skill cool downs (maybe intended?) Having ranged pets shadowstep in to use “venomous outburst” feels like a nonbo None of the pet unleashed skills are labeled as beast skills so there is no trait synergy “Exploding spores” feels like it should be a blast finisher. “Exploding spores” is very hard to land and encourages standing in hit boxes. Would be nice if there was more leeway or it surrounds the target if one is selected. I like the trait “restorative strikes” as an idea as Ranger needed better open world sustain, but I found it surprisingly a lot weaker than I expected. It is strange it does not affect the pet at all. Soulbeast has a trait (“Twice as Vicious”) that increases damage after disabling, which now detracts from the Untamed’s focus. The Untamed has no available damage focused elite for structured PvE. Strength of the Pack does nothing in a structured PvE setting where these very common boons are provided Not being able to key bind the pet to attack a target or to return makes the pet very hard to control Untamed doesn’t provide a new stun-break unlike almost every other elite spec The name “Untamed" The disencouraging While the Unleash mechanic provides an interesting flow in PvP, in PvE it provides nothing since the focus is sadly always offensive. This is compounded through many of the traits and mechanics which discourage you to never unleash your pet. Namely: “Vow of the Untamed”, lowers your dps by ~30% and doesn’t improve the pets damage the pet loses the ability to do their normal skills, so after you spam the three unleash skills it is actually weaker you are stuck in Unleash pet form for 10 seconds (excluding Fervent Force) which is a long time to be a lot weaker. This feels especially punishing since hammer weapons skills share a cooldown unleashed pet skills will also be cooldown anyway. There is no pet identity when it is unleashed, as you lose access to its unique pet skills, and pet swap does nothing Other than “potential” damage the Untamed provides nothing in group PvE content that Soulbeast didn’t already bring. While I can understand not putting typical support on the spec such as quickness of alacrity a potential role it could bring is on demand aegis and stability (something that really only Guardian can do) which fits the tanky role nicely. Something that stood out to me was that Untamed would allow a Ranger to fight in tandem with the pet, with the non-unleashed one supporting the unleashed one. Unfortunately this doesn’t come across to me with the “on disabled target” effects of the unleashed pet feeling not impactful and many pets being unable to support an unleashed ranger in any way different from core ranger. Whilst allowing us to have better control of our pet is great, it is also very tedious in more casual settings like open world events where now if you arn’t pressing these buttons on cooldown your pet is doing a lot less damage than it was previously. We should be able to toggle auto activate on pet abilities for the previously AI controlled abilities. All the adept and master traits are not fun for build-crafting and in a structured PvE environment where all boons are provided, the traits essentially do not exist. Both the top and the bottom line are mainly focused on the Unleash Pet state which I have already described is a state I don’t feel encouraged to enter. This has already been mentioned a lot, and was mentioned in the live stream, but having only the hammer interacting with unleashed mode feels bad and creates a feeling that we have to use the hammer to experience an Untamed. Armchair Developer Ideas/Suggestions To capture the idea of fighting in tandem with the pet, one possible suggestion is to improve the ability of the pet to support the ranger, and increase the impact when the ranger supports the pet. To improve how the Ranger supports the pet, one potentially fun change would be changing all the ranger weapon skills that currently enhance the pet while the ranger isn’t unleashed. These skills include but are not limited to: maul on greatsword, hunter’s shot on longbow, and precision swipe on the sword and would be classified as “unison” skills. Unison attacks would be the same as the core ranger weapon skill, but be slightly weaker for the ranger, but have an improved effect on how it supports the pet. For example, “hunter’s shot” could now shadow step the pet instead of providing swiftness, “crippling shot” from short bow could cause “rending vines” to do the boon corrupt (stealing the “corrupting vines” trait idea), and “winter’s bite” is what would cause “enveloping haze” to chill. Other examples could be taunting a target to get it off your pet, or providing defensive boons/healing the pet. When the ranger is unleashed these skills would lose these effects and be replaced by new effects(see below) exactly like how the hammer works. To improve how the pet could support the ranger, this could be done by adding a new effect to the three base pet skills. As all pet skills have different cooldowns this will change how untamed value pets from core. Some potential bonuses that could be added onto the pet’s skills could be. F1 - rangers next attack does 50% more if flanking F2 - taunt the target F3 - grant the ranger aegis and stability (could be traited to provide to group) Then to follow this up, the Untamed while unleashed will flip the “unison” weapon skills I mentioned earlier (in the same way the hammer works now) to a form that no longer enhances the pet, but are now improved if meeting different conditions that could be set up by the pet including, if target is disabled, if flanking target, increased damage per condition on target, and increased damage for each defensive boon on the ranger. Unless the condition is met the unison skills would be slightly weaker than their core counterpart, meaning the ranger is more reliant on setting them up with the pet. As a trade-off to core ranger, all pet skills could have a longer cooldown because of this and because of these longer cooldowns it incentivizes swapping who is unleashed in order to access the “unison” skills in the other direction. These changes would hopefully make Unleash Pet feel more worthwhile and provide an inherent trade off that now a lot more of the Untamed’s damage and survivability is tied with the pet which will be much more punishing to lose than core ranger.