Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582

They're mostly melee range skills though and fairly conditional, I think very strong boon rip/corrupt could be the niche that puts Untamed into the useful box. Do we really want yet another "master-of-none" spec?

I would prefer to see Debilitating Blows corrupt boons on disable, so there is another source since those conditions are useless.

Serious, you could buff pet damage by 500% when the pets are unleashed in PvE, that is how low they are, and it would maybe (not actually) bring the spec up to par with Soulbeast and make this kinda a beastmaster spec for PvE at least.

Sure, you can earn it in-game, but how long will it take you? I like playing WvW the most and to earn enough gold to buy a legendary would take a very very long time. I mean, if someone just likes doing world bosses and wanted to buy a legendary off the TP, it would take them 1 hour a day for 8 months, at least. Or, you could go and grind SW RIBA for I dunno, like 120 hours or something similar. I don't want to invest that sort of time. I would prefer to just play what I want and then buy it with cash because my time out of the game is worth a lot more than my time in the game. Instead of 100 hours of grind or 1 hour a day for 8 months, I can just dedicate a few hours of my wage, or I can choose to pick up a couple extra hours of OT and get what I want, supporting the game at the same time. Why the issue?

Not sure how you've arrived at this, but you've got it all wrong. I'm spending 1 hour at work so I can pay game developers for an imaginary weapon that I can then use to play 19 hours of things I like. As opposed to playing 20 hours of things I don't like for the imaginary weapon. This is just a more efficient use of my time. YMMV.

What's the point of spending 20 hours in-game farming for 600g when I can buy that with 1 hours overtime at work? Then I can just spend those 19 game hours playing content I enjoy.

Time is the only currency. Whether you spend it in-game or IRL, you are spending time to get anything in this game and for some it is far more efficient to just work some overtime and buy items they like and then just play what they want, rather than grinding out stuff for many hours.

Even at 60s, I honestly want them to halve the duration and recharge so it can be used more often. Long CD skills suck.

This brings up another thing, Mirage Cloak. Mirage does not reposition or lose time by dodging. This alone is a good reason to extend the duration the Ambushes are available and why they feel quite clunky to use right now.

That's why the PvP/PvE skill splits exist. Exactly!

So, I agree with almost everything you say here. But I also think that good design is also simple, there is no need for additional complexity.

I mean, yeah, if you go into Gold or lower tier and spam skills on core valk, you will probably get ok results, but the same can be said for literally any build on metabattle. If you want to go thumb-in-bum-mind-in-neutral and play Ranger, it will work. But if you want to actually play it well, it requires you taking notice of two vectors and two sets of skills and a general lack of skills that prevents you from spamming. I get what you are saying with the lack of experience with the spec. I do. But you have to admit, it does not flow well as a spec, it is clunky AF. This is partially to do with them swapping the key binds which has broken 9 years of muscle memory and that there is now an additional mechanics to deal with. It's not that Druid has less, but tons of the Untamed is conditional depending on what stance you have up. With Druid and soulbeast you know this intuitively.

I say make Ambush skills the Opening Strike Mechanic for each weapon, they are permanently available while Opening Strike is available. Then you can just refresh Opening strike with the Untamed trait. Brings a ton more synergy to the spec.

You can already do that with all Ranger specs though, with varying levels of DPS output.

Untamed Feedback Beta 3 Untamed lacks focus and clear intent on what its role is. If it is to be a Frontline Bruiser that makes the pet a more important part of the eSpec, then it will require both damage and sustain combined with some group utility function and more pet interactions. Right now it lacks all of these things. Untamed provides zero group utility which alone will exclude it from being a Frontline Bruiser spec in WvW. The damage is low, the AoE is low and the sustain is minimal. I’m just going to go through everything and give suggestions. There are a lot of CDs to think about in this spec and there are multiple mechanics to think about as well as the pet itself which is already a second character you have to be aware of the positioning of etc. There is a lot going on and I think anything that can be done to reduce complexity is a good thing. Traits – Why is everything so conditional based on the stance with this spec? Flavor? It is just unnecessary complexity and none of the conditional boons are game breaking. The top line is “On Disable” which is good. The middle line is sustain, also good, but the bottom line should be more focused on damage and mobility. Unleashed Power – Add an effect for group support. That is; "Whenever your pet gains a boon, it grants that boon to nearby allies. The Ranger is not affected by this effect." Use appropriately short duration's. By placing it on the pet, it means the pet is more crucial to the spec and that Nature Magic is also needed if you want to really build around boon support in organised play. Debilitating Blows – These conditions are not impactful. Since we have some boon removal and corruption in the spec, it would be good to be able to focus on that a bit more and so this trait would be better served as “Steal X boons when either you or your pet disable a foe. You also grant these boons to your pet.” This should place Stability as the first priority since none of the CC we have is at all useful in the Frontline when stab is being spammed in this boon meta. Nature’s Shield – The barrier granted by this is quite low and is not super useful unless you are taking 3 or more cantrips. It could be increased by 50% easily or it could be given to allies as well perhaps with a reduction, some more added group support for the other frontliners. Blinding Outburst/Corrupting Vines – These two traits should be combined and moved to the Major Master slot. “Untamed Pet skills deal more damage. Venomous Outburst Blinds, Rending Vines corrupts boons and Enveloping Haze reflects projectiles.” More damage and utility. Natural Fortitude – Remove the Ambush skill effect. “Gain vitality. You and your pet gain barrier when either of you disable a foe.” Enhancing Impact – Just remove the conditional and make the trait give both boons to you and your pet on disable. "When either you or your pet disable a foe, you both gain Quickness and Stability". Cleansing Unleash – “Convert two conditions to boons for both you and your pet when either of you unleash” 10s CD is fine then. Corrupting Vines – Delete this and make a new trait for Ambush skills which will go in the Major Adept slot. “Corrupting Ambush: Ambush skills deal more damage, siphon health, corrupt boons and recharge faster. Striking with an Ambush skill grants an Attack of Opportunity." Now we have several sources of boon corruption and removal that it can work as a build to focus on. You can also buff your Ambush skills without needing both bottom line traits. Vow of the Untamed - The pet needs some interaction. "Your outgoing strike damage is increased and your pet takes reduced strike damage while you are unleashed. You take reduced strike damage and your pet's outgoing strike damage is increased while your pet is unleashed." Fervent Force - a good trait, but it is another chance to add some group utility and pet interaction when combined with the minor adept trait. "Disabling a Foe reduces the cooldowns of all your equipped skills and grants your pet Alacrity." Restorative Strikes - does not affect the pet and it has no effect when you are at 100% health. Since Untamed is lacking sustain, and pets need all the healing they can get, I suggest changing that to "A percentage of the strike damage you deal heals you. If you are at 100% health, gain barrier instead. Your pet gains X% of any of your incoming healing". It is worded that way on purpose, if the Ranger is healed by the Support HB in his subgroup, that healing is passed onto the pet. Ferocious Symbiosis - This needs multiple paragraphs. The movement speed is useless. Ranger has near permanent swiftness in a lot of builds and every build that takes skirmishing. It is thrown out like candy by every other class build out there, so unless this (possible) +25% is a stacking base speed and therefore overcomes the cap, it is pointless. Getting this buff on yourself is almost impossible if you think about it. Pets cannot hit a moving target that it is equal speed with and since swiftness is so prevalent, the 25% speed the pet gets is not enough to keep up with a moving target, so the Ranger will not get the buff and still need swiftness anyway. If the target is standing still and the pet is able to connect, like on a raid boss or whatever, then the Ranger does not need the speed buff. Also, even if you do cap the pet out at the 25% increase, it is completely nullified if you have chosen the Beastmastery trait line which offers a 30% increase as a minor trait. Also, the duration is very low. Adding Superspeed to this would be far more intuitive and all but fix the pathing and lack of ability to hit moving targets of the pets. I also think it would be better to be an increase in attack speed, not just a damage modifier. It adds much more pressure to be continually hitting a target than for each of the strikes to do 15% more damage. There is plenty of precedent in Warrior's Dual Wielding and Mesmer's Malicious Sorcery for it to be +20% attack speed. Or whatever number is needed to give the increase in damage desired, though I think you could increase it substantially to even 33% to buff the DPS of the spec. Remember the pet is needed to hit targets to give the buff to the ranger, so in PvP scenarios it is not very reliable and so a larger number is warranted too. Skills – Again, why the conditionality with all the boons? Just make them give both, it is not at all OP compared to literally every other eSpec out there. You can maybe chop 20% off the durations, just give both and reduce the mental complexity that this spec has in spades. Perilous Gift – I like this more than I thought I would and I think I will actually use it. Exploding Spores - IMO, Exploding Spores should be changed from a knockdown to a stun and make it 0.5s per spore strike, so if you do actually get all 6 to hit, it is a big CC, but you also get some benefit from only having a couple of them hit too. Right now you can only get all 6 to hit on an immobile target while you are standing inside it’s hitbox. I think the delay should be shortened by 50% too. Mutate Conditions – I don’t really get the justification for the vulnerability, but I will use this skill as is. Unnatural Traversal – I really like this skill, but I think it should be a stun break too or grant stability instead of the regeneration. Hammer - Well I think it needs a numbers bump, but also just separate the CDs of all the skills, it would be a much better option to use. Right now it is quite buggy and is hard to deal damage with, the Unleashed Thump skill almost never connects, even against a standing target, from 240+ range.

Read my post above about binding multiple functions to the same key. You can't use them at the same time so it should be ok. Adding Shift into your map may work well for you too. You can go Attack on F1, then Pet 1 and Untamed 1 as Shift + F1. Beast and Untamed 2 is F2. Return is F3, Untamed skill 3 and Beast Skill 3 are on Shift + F3. It may work a bit better for me since my mouse has 12 buttons on it and I've just gotten used to that.

I am using an external program for my mouse/keyboard to do my mapping so I won't have this problem. I agree with you.

I honestly want them to make the Ambush skills a core mechanic. The Ambush skills are permanently available when you have an Opening Strike available. Then just make Opening Strike (the trait) refresh when swapping Untamed Stances (with an appropriate CD ofc). The only other way to refresh it would be with Remorseless, meaning you can now actually create a good build around the Marks minor traits with Remorseless and Untamed.

1. Mindlessly spamming buttons may mean you are a bad player, but if it gets the job done, then that is a class issue. You cannot spam skills on Ranger and expect good outcomes, you CAN do that on many classes and have a good outcome. From a mechanical point of view, yes, there are less buttons to press. But from a mental point of view, it is a lot more complicated. 2. I never stated Untamed is spammy nor did I say it should be played as such. I just stated that it has a lot going on and many CDs to manage mentally and buttons to press mechanically to swap between everything to gain the different skills (weapon swap, pet swap, stance swap), for little to no gain over core ranger and much less effectively than other classes which have access to the same amount of skills like Elementalist or Engineer.

Sometimes I like to solo a bounty or two for fun and challenge in full Trailblazers, do you want to be that tanky?

Can you not just map them however you like? If I'm being honest, I will probably make macros for Untamed. For QoL, not an unfair advantage. It is a ludicrous design. Attack my Target and Unleashed Pet skill 1 will be mapped to the same key, F1. Pet skill 1 will be on an automatic macro that will execute by itself since I don't want to have to press it every few seconds to gain core ranger functionality and to avoid carpel tunnel/RSI. I mean if I'm in combat with Ranger for 1 hour a day, that is six hundred additional unnecessary presses. Hand health ANet, hand health. Beast skill will stay at F2 and will also execute Unleashed Pet skill 2. Unleashed pet skill 3 will go to Shift+F2. Return To Me will stay at F3.

I don't get why they made this decision, they would have been much better off facing each other, ie one facing left and one facing right, with the pet one being green to match the green theme with pet being unleashed.

It's not ridiculous actually. Ranger is not very easy to play when compared to many other classes. It has a very low skill floor so it is easy to get into, but it also has a very high skill ceiling because it has a lot less to work with than other classes who can spam skills and you also need to be aware of the positioning of two vectors, not one. Pressing buttons does not make a class dificult to play or have a higher skill ceiling. What Ranger requires of the player is timing, patience and situational awareness. I mean, if you want to play it well in PvP scenarios that is. Because who really cares about PvE in this regard, you just want to do as much damage as possible, nothing else matters. All ranger skills are situational reactionary skills, almost nothing is spammable and since Ranger only has (until Untamed) 10 weapon skills to choose from, if you just spam your skills and swap, well you are a bad player and you will die. But on many of the other eSpecs, this is exactly how you play them. You just spam as many skills as possible. Ranger is more about positioning and timing than spamming. You can't just take Ranger and give it spamming mechanics now and expect it to flow well or even work without just feeling like an Ele who is using only two attunements and brings Glyph of Elementals. You're going to need to explain how they are not like that because they are when I play them.

Personally, I think Elementalist is MUCH MUCH less complex to play than Untamed. Elementalist has a lot of skills, but they are grouped well with a theme to each attunement so you know which one to swap to when you want particular skills or effects. And even if they are on CD, you can just swap to a different set and use those skills. There are not a lot of CDs to remember like with Untamed; Pet CD 15/20s OR 45/60s depending on if you have beastmastery traited and whether the pet is dead or alive, Pet swap traits, you have weapon swap, weapon swap traits and weapon swap sigils on a 9s CD, you have Quickdraw that only lasts 5s after a swap, You have the 1s CD of the stance itself, then a 10s CD for Cleaning Unleash, and the CDs of the pet skills, the CD of the Unleashed Pet skills and then the CDs of the Ambush skills too. So you have to juggle swapping between pets, weapons and between Unleashed stances, each of which have different effects.

They need to add a different effects bar to separate boons and unique mechanic icons from everything else. It is near impossible to tell at a glance what is ready when you have a dozen boons, food, utility, metabolic/utility primer, Presence of the Keep, Guild Claim, Spirit Banner, Heroes Banner plus multiple boosters all in the same effect tray. Like it literally goes off the side of the screen!