Kovu.7560

I remember many years back a video of a 1v1 at the windmill except as soon as the two players /bow a group of others SR stealths in, builds a ballista on the spot and the fellow in the 1v1 starts using it in the fight. One of the funniest wvw videos I've seen but its ancient and I can't for the life of me find it. ~ Kovu

What a kick in the rear. Disappointed. ~ Kovu

There's been a decline in the fish population since climate change caused quaggan island to explode into a mess of ruins. ~ Kovu

I mean the cooldown nerfs to the auto-revive utilities is a good move at least. Personally I'd have given them drawbacks rather than longer cooldowns, but its better than nothing. Undeath signet has a massive drawback, banner has a three hour cooldown and S&R and can be cleaved as its not an auto revive so they don't really bother me. ~ Kovu

Weird, I see more permastealth deadeyes (well, I guess I don't actually see them) of both the power and condi variant than any of all of those professions listed above except for ranger and necro -- and usually in the case of necro they're not actually roaming, rather trying to return to their zerg. (Though those condi bunkers are around.) I still see plenty of DD and core, too, usually d/p sb with shadow arts. I have a build on my tab specifically for thieves, but often they're trying to burst me from stealth and I'm rarely able to switch to it. You're certainly right about folks never seeming to leave home without their pocket support, though. What can you do. ~ Kovu

cursed

You lose rating. That's good enough. I've been placed together with with some of the worst players I've run into in the gamemode who also happen to be some of the nicest folks I've had the opportunity to chat with in the game. I actually had a person comment on my toon's hat while they were in downstate and I was trying to revive them. Time and a place buddy. It's the Gold 2-Plat 2 folks whom tend to be toxic and feel the most personally attacked while being on the losing team. Silver/early gold players are like "w/e we know we're bad but we're having fun". At the end of the day not everyone is playing on the same field (folks have slower reflexes due to age or chronic ailment, others have inherent disabilities.) The matchmaking in this game is also, uhh, subpar, so there's that. Nothing quite like having the system pair you with a bunch of folks one tier below you several times in a row just to get your win/loss ratio closer to 50/50. ~ Kovu

Honestly I was expecting the reasoning for this to be more associated with necromancers being able to indefinitely keep AoE denial in the smaller circles. I chuckle that the reasoning is thieves. Poor thieves, not allowed to do anything without getting a thread on this forum as a result. Fight at the points, sure, but accept the fact that sometimes you won't be able to fight _on_ them. The problem with Foefire mid point is that if a particularly bunkery team is able to capture it they can essentially hold it indefinitely while still having their team cycle to the relatively close side nodes (essentially forcing the other team to play sides). I've spent near entire games camping mid on that map with my 31k health condi scourge. Gold 3, to be fair, but still, lots of room to move around. I do think the middle points should be a little larger than the side points, but not Foefire-sized. I do agree its too easy for AoE specs to deny points for a prolonged amount of time. ~ Kovu

One could make the argument that individual teleportation skills aren't the issue so much as a couple of professions being able to chain them together along with stealth. That said, I feel the game needs fewer teleports that allow folks to disengage and more teleports that allow players to close the gap and/or reposition slightly. Leap skills are a little different because they're telegraphed, can be interrupted, aren't nearly as instantaneous and usually don't cover the same distance as a shadowstep skill (barring the exception of some ranger leaps). Tack a little skill onto the use of these teleports and force them to require a target such as a guardian's sword. I like the change they made to Ride the Lightning many years ago in that if the skill doesn't end with a hit on the enemy the cooldown is doubled. The game should have more of that to encourage folks to fight rather than run away and I would be entirely okay with every movement skill in the game getting that treatment in some form. ~ Kovu

This right here. Part of the reason they're not fun to fight is due to how much visual clutter they create, especially in group fights. Its enough of an advantage. Though admittedly this is more of pvp gripe, not sure why anyone would even care in wvw. I guess for roaming? Regardless, tab targeting should always prioritize the actual enemy player, regardless if they're playing mesmer, petting zoo or some sort of ranger with adds. ~ Kovu

Power immobeast with stance share, greatsword axe/axe and prelude lash pet. Takes a bit more effort than OWP / Longbowing into an enemy group, but the spike damage on greatsword axe/axe is solid and the roots will allow your revs and scourges to land their AoEs. Muddy terrain compliments a mesmer's focus pull quite well if timed correctly. No, we're not wanted as much as other professions and you won't be topping dps charts during a pirate ship engagement, but open minded guilds make it work well and those roots can be clutch at breaking up enemy groups. Run scholar runes and damage stacking traits from Skirmishing, BM & SB. 90%ish crit chance, 250%+ crit damage before scrapper/firebrand buffs. Marauders, or zerk if you're feeling spicy. ~ Kovu

Yes, it was an entertaining watch. No, I do not personally think its especially healthy for the game. ~ Kovu

Oooooh, are we theorycrafting balance now? Ok, my turn. Give every profession an extra 10k health but cut healing potency across the board by, say, 25%. This'll nerf the heavy bunkers from sustaining indefinitely while also cutting back on the 100->0 bursts, (from stealth or otherwise). Cut back on AoE defenses such as healing, reflection, cleansing and boonspam in some way. These are the things that powercreep large scale battles more than raw stats or individual contribution. Remove non-targeting teleports from the game, severely reduce their range or don't allow them to break stun. They're so much better than traditional leap skills. Alternatively, give them all the RtL treatment in that if they're not being used to close a gap they have a much higher cooldown. Breaking a stun should give you a brief window (like 1/3rd of a second or so) where you cannot be re-stunned. Stability should cap at about 5 seconds but be non corruptable. Wait, what was this thread about? Oh. Uhh. Nah. ~ Kovu

Good thing I have an offshore tax haven account on Blackgate. ~ Kovu

Just give it a 20s icd, or something. That's how most T6 rune effects work. DH traps are potent but fairly easy to predict and work around while ranger traps aren't worth the utility slot, both shining only against less experienced opposition who choose to eat the full duration. ~ Kovu edit- Lol, "tapper". Dance rune!

For comparisons sake, when merging with their pet Soulbeast can trait to get +75 to all stats through Pack Alpha, easy 5-10 might generation through Potent Ally, 10% damage through Loud Whistle, 150 ferocity and +30% movement through Pet's Prowess, +10% damage through Oppressive Superiority as well as a crazy amount of boon uptime and an additional 7-12% damage through the Soulbeast traitline. Some of these are minor traits, including the movement boosting one. Finally, there's Sic 'Em. I haven't run the numbers but I'm betting that's around 60% increased damage. If that's not enough Soulbeast comes with a trait that potentially reduces condition damage by 33% and a heal that's more potent, doesn't screw over the pet and basically negates the effectiveness of condis on you for 6 seconds every 30 seconds. Certainly beats a heal that transfers a bit of health from your pet after a delay and a full cleanse on a 30 second cooldown that eats a utility slot. Soulbeast can build to tank sustained condition pressure for a while with limited impact on your 1-10 and without having to dip into WS, Untamed basically cannot. I don't even think the damage numbers on hammer are all that low compared to other ranger weapons. It's just a super slow weapon with Maul-like tells. They probably should be a bit higher considering the clunkiness of the weapon but I think folks are just not used to having to deal with core ranger power damage output again. This profession have some of the worst base damage and coefficients in the game, (supposedly to counterbalance the pet mechanic). At their most basic ranger pets are relatively useless, unlike a certain mecha that was recently introduced to us. If a wolf lands a knockdown on a player its a actually a kittening miracle and the person who was knocked down was clearly away from their keyboard at the time but will probably still hop on the forums to whine about ranger being an AI class. A lot of folks were happy being able to just remove the pet mechanic from the equation and gain a bunch of extra stuff in exchange, but I always felt like that was a band-aid solution to what was supposed to be the pet class. Untamed doesn't overtly support condi builds in any way (though there's nothing stopping you from running one), whereas Soulbeast got a bit of support through a number of those damage multipliers that affect a merged Soulbeast (as well as one trait in Soulbeast itself) as well as the only somewhat decent main-hand condition-based weapon for ranger. Untamed has, well, Fervent Force I guess. That would probably work well with Shortbow's relatively short cooldowns and can be paired with a trapper build. I'm theory crafting at this point as I've only been playing with the hammer. That said, I'm certain Soulbeast and even Druid will still outclass it here. So no, I'm not overly impressed with the spec. I wouldn't be even if the hammer skills did all of their things at once while in both forms. Its clunky, slow and probably does less damage than a core ranger (that can pick up a third traitline). Moreover the traits are mostly lackluster. Even if I thought the spec was all that great we're still dealing with the awful AI pet mechanic and now we can't even tell them when or who to attack. I also might be a bit salty that I was actually hard-countered by a Juggernaut mecha the other day whilst trying out hammer Untamed. ~ Kovu

Bring back rat wells. 🐭

Whoops. You want the vigor trait. I was messing around with a trapper rune soulbeast for wvw roaming around the time I posted that build so I likely clicked that on accident. ~ Kovu

You say that, but don't appreciate just how bad the pet ai in this game is. Here's hoping the player has a good amount of control over the functionality of the mech, seeing as the entire spec is revolved around it. I do think it'd be neat if the elite skill is hopping into the mech for a bit, perhaps comparable to lich form. I suspect it'll just be a big AoE attack/effect from the mech, though. This spec's got my attention for sure. ~ Kovu

Honestly I'm less interested in what its called and more interested in how it performs. Crossing my fingers. ~ Kovu

Metzie has the right idea. They should just let you throw four pails into the mystic forge for a 24-slot pail, throw 4 24-slot pails into the mf for a 28-slot pail, etc. Going off the cost of candy corn cobs that's roughly 40 gold for 1 24-slot pail, 160 gold for 1 28-slot pail & 640 gold for 1 32-slot pail. Nobody would ever actually craft a 32-slot pail, but at least it would be something. Or if that's too pricey perhaps three pails plus a cheap binding item. That would be 30, 90 & 270 gold respectively. I dunno. I'm not here to balance the Tyrian economy, but I agree it is kind of a lackluster reward for a seasonal reward track -- especially in 2021. ~ Kovu

And if it does, you're only inconvenienced until you can re-merge (and then immediately unmerge if that's your gameplan). It's essentially a non-issue. Core rangers and Druids have to wait a full minute if they swap pets whilst one is dead, and there are practically no mechanics to revive a pet during combat. Druid pets die to a gentle breeze and pets in general die in large scale combat and cannot be stowed or in any way taught to avoid the red circles. I haven't looked at the pvp rankings but I'm willing to bet Soulbeasts finish much higher than Druids and core rangers in the standings. ~ Kovu

Of course. Excellent for de-sieging utility. That's the nice thing about build tabs, you can swap to quick draw barrage (heck, pull out a second longbow if that's your gameplan for that build) and clean out the interior of a place real well. You can sic 'em that piece of siege, too. Siege-humpers hate it. 😃 I wouldn't take it into a fight though, the dps boost from vicious quarry is just too godly to pass up. Probably the single biggest dps boost ranger has, though I haven't run the math. (I used to use quick draw on condi builds for double bonfire in pvp, but it was gutted to the point where folks just stand in it on point and don't care.) ~ Kovu

If anything its too easy for Soulbeasts to circumvent the penalty for having their pet downed whilst unmerged. But the direction they've taken with Soulbeasts has lead to a lot of Soulbeast players remaining near permanently merged, only unmerging long enough to use a pet burst skill or utility such as smoke field (depending on the pet of course) and I'm not sure how you'd nerf a spec that can't even swap pets. There should be some drawback to Soulbeasts for having their pet die. On the flipside, as some folks have suggested, pets instantly dying in large scale competitive content is a (small) part of what limits non-Soulbeasts from contributing more to the fight. Pets should scale to take less damage from any attacks they aren't directly the target of and should always be lowest priority targeting for AoEs. One could make a similar argument for clones or anything else that is a core element of a profession (rather than an optional trait or utility such as minions). ~ Kovu