PvP feedback:
So i am mainly a PvP player so that is what i will talk about. I'm not top tier but am decent enough (P2 and regularly play ATs/mATs). Here are my early thoughts:
1) Pet commands need to come back. At minimum we need return to have a dedicated keybind (like passive/aggressive mode does). A good example of why is fighting against Full Counter or Glint Heal, typically i would recall my pet to stop triggering these, can no longer reliably do this.
2) Honestly, the pet skills being f1-3 should just be a core mechanic... I really don't see why it is not if the tech is there. Unleashing is the real 'new' mechanic anyway.
3) Hammer is.... underwhelming. It offers no real active defence (evade, invuln, block, leaps), but equally doesn't offer enough damage to make up for it. Not only is the damage low, there is no snare/chase potential when the ranger is unleashed. The CC on hammer with pet unleashed is nice but lacks reliable follow up. If you CC someone you have v limited follow up damage, you don't have access to your pet skills (tail swipe), or any decent damage hammer skills without unleashing yourself. And having to do this this means the window for follow up is tiny, and makes dealing damage high effort/skill for mediocre reward. I may as well just stick with GS Hilt Bash + Maul, LB knock + Rapid fire, or Axe 3 + Dagger 4. There is of course some l2p here, and I like the idea of a higher skill floor to do damage on ranger, but only if the damage is actually better than what we already have...
I don't know how much sense this makes for other gamemodes or more generally for balance. But i wouldn't hate the idea of the hammer CC kit to be active when i also have access to my normal pet skills, at least then i could use the CCs to line up pet damage (Tail Swipe, Jacaranda Burst, Tiger etc). Either that or make the unleashed pet skills be better damage, right now it feels we go in defensive mode with hammer at the same time as utility mode for pet.
Overall with the ranger unleashed I feel the hammer kit needs more damage, some chase potential ,and/or some active defense for staying power.
4) Traits/ utilities. The traits are decent enough but we still have the same problem as before. Beastmastery, Wilderness Survival and Marksmanship are v strong for power/damage builds, and the new traitline simply feels like you're downgrading either damage or sustain, depending which you sacrifice. Soulbeast offered enough damage that marksmanship was ok to give up, we don't really have something similar here. [Will probably update more here after more playing around]
5) Small thing- the pet unleashed and ranger unleashed icons need to be different colours or something. Can barely tell them apart, and with all the visual clutter in PvP looking at the character animation is not reliable.
:)
