Ehecatl.9172

Being immortal and reincarnating are different things. The whole "live long, die in fire, and be reborn as a chick" isn't a thing Fenghuang does. That's why even your link says Fenghuang is MISLEADINGLY called a phoenix. It doesn't have many traits in common with our Western idea of a phoenix beyond superficial similarities. I'd also disagree that being representative of the emperor's authority should mean it needs a super OP AoE. Fenghuang is a symbol of peace and prosperity. If anything it probably should have been a support pet rather than have its weird laser blast attack. But this isn't really the thread to have a discussion about the thematic characteristics of a specific pet and what we think it should do based on the mythology of the creature. I was just pointing out that the phoenix in GW2 is a Fenghuang, and that is why it isn't a flaming bird with fire explosion attacks.

Probably the clunkiest thing about Ambush for me is that you don't get the Ambush skill if you start the fight Unleashed. I tend to keep myself Unleashed outside of combat purely for aesthetic reasons, so when initiating I have to swap to my pet and then swap back to get the big Ambush move, even though thematically you'd think entering combat with your ambush would be the logical thing to do. Also we need a more visually striking way of knowing when our ambush is off cooldown. Maybe our weapon gains a slight glow in combat when ambush is ready or something.

I still use my salamander drake as my underwater companion. It's decently tanky and the AoE boiling water move it has on F2 is nice for clearing out groups of fish enemies. River drake is still solid for open world and probably the best of the drakes for PVP. It is even recommended for a few of the Metabattle SPVP builds for that sweet tail swipe damage. The norn's wolf is also sometimes still used in PVP for that Howl F2 and the fact canines are generally useful due to their knockdown. There's stronger pets out there but taking a wolf isn't just shooting yourself in the foot like if you were trying to use a a bear or devourer.

It's a Chinese Phoenix, aka a Fenghuang, not an Egyptian/Western Phoenix. It's kind'a similar to how we call the Chinese Long a dragon even though their dragons aren't associated with fire and aren't servants of the devil or bringers of chaotic destruction. Fenghuang isn't associated with reincarnation and while it has some fire associations it isn't specifically a being of fire like the phoenix. They symbolize luck and rule over all other birds while serving as the feminine opposite to the dragon. It only appears in places blessed by the highest levels of peace and happiness and as such is a symbol of good fortune. They didn't have fire powers in GW1 either. Though I also don't recall them shooting frickin' laser beams out of their beaks! If I had to guess that is meant to be some kind of celestial energy rather than fire.

I'm also enjoying it for the most part. The one trait that reduces out cooldowns when we hit a stun or knock-back makes for some fun longbow gameplay that makes ranged combat more rapid pace. I also like having more control over the pet and I like the new Unleashed pet skills that give it more utility. The Ambush skills are also pretty cool. Right now I am playing around with a sort of overwhelming Alpha Strike build that combos Ambush and Opening Strike. Too bad there isn't a "gain fury when you Unleash" trait. It'd let the two lines synergize really well. It is kind of baffling how little survivability the spec offers the pet though. I think that is my biggest criticism. Anet didn't even TRY to make the pet more survivable. Every ranger player ever knew that to be a viable front lines fighter the pet needed survival options, yet the first version of Untamed the pet didn't benefit from ANY of the Untamed defensive abilities which is just insane to me. Something to hope gets improved on in the following months I guess.

One benefit of Untamed is it can really mix up our rotations. If you take the grandmaster trait that causes hard control effects to reduce our cooldowns and you make good use of it you can put out a lot of ranged damage with Ambush opening strike -> Rapid Fire -> Point Blank Shot -> Rapid Fire. You can do similar with Greatsword with Maul -> Hilt Bash -> Maul. I dunno much about optimal PVE damage numbers but it feels satisfying if nothing else.

This is what I ultimately had to do. Ended up waiting on the first ship for them to do all the fun stuff. Not the best work around but at least I got to Cantha.

Also having this problem. Download is done. I just naturally have high ping. This wouldn't even be a problem if the instance didn't take away my skyscale and force me to use Aurene's jump. I guess the entire expansion is unplayable just because I don't have the best internet service. Is there any possible work around at all?

I am. Cantha is going to be big on nostalgia for me regardless, and honestly I do still like Untamed even if it isn't where it needs to be to do what Anet claims they made it for. I've been feeling stuck with Soulbeast for too long.

Mobile spirits would be great. While I do like the concept of them being stationary like in GW1 this game is far too mobile for that style of play. Plus I miss rolling in with a spirit pack. Random thought, but what if spirits were immune to incoming damage until their breakbar was broken? Might let them survive bigger fights without making them incapable of being dealt with if a player wants to actually dedicate energy into removing them.

Untamed even goes so far as to make it harder to chain control effects together with your pet since if your pet is Unleashed it loses its control effects and if the ranger is Unleashed hammer loses its control effects. Then the pet also loses its hard hitting moves when it has the Unleashed damage boost and none of its control skills count for the various Untamed traits.

After spending a few hours with the spec in open world PVE and a little in SPVP here are my thoughts: Hammer being the only weapon that benefits from being Unleashed is a lot more disappointing that I thought it'd be. If you aren't running hammer then Unleashed is just a damage buff that has no other real effect on what you're doing. Half the time I forget I am even Unleashed, and unless I for some reason want a specific pet ability I have absolutely no incentive to ever switch who is Unleashed during combat. The pet doesn't really feel empowered when Unleashed. It just gets a different set of skills which while nice also means they can't use their spike damage skills like the drake's tail swipe with the damage bonus from being Unleashed. It also removes the uniqueness of the different pet families from the equation. All for three utility skills that while definitely nice don't leave me feeling like my pet is any stronger than when it isn't Unleashed. Untamed offers no new tools to keep our pets alive and our pets don't benefit from a lot of our traits. This kind of goes into my second point too. This doesn't feel like a pet empowering spec. Ultimately Unleashed really needs more to it than a flat damage buff. We need to get something out of switching Unleashed between the ranger and the pet too. Maybe when we move the primal energy from one target to another the recipient also gets a copy of the other's boons. So if the Ranger passes Unleashed to the pet the pet gets a copy of our boons and vice versa. I see no reason the pet shouldn't also benefit from Restorative Strikes. I also feel like the pet's disabling effects should count for Fervent Force and the other Untamed traits associated with control. Cleansing Unleash should also be at least 2 conditions removed. That would put it more on-par with our other condition cleansing traits. Utility wise Nature's Binding should probably count as a disable skill just for synergy with the Untamed's traitline. Exploding Spores could also do with a larger AoE per spore because right now unless the enemy is literally occupying the space of the ranger when you cast it you won't get the knockdown. The elite should also give the pet the same bonuses so it can survive the same environments the ranger is trying to endure. Similarly the heal hurting the pet is actually anti-synergy with the spec and something I can't see any ranger using in its current form.

According to the stream it was to avoid power creep since the other weapons weren't balanced with an Unleashed mode in mind. Initially they were considering giving all weapons' auto attack a stronger Unleashed version but realized that'd be pure power creep so refrained, but they still aren't certain they want to keep Unleashed skills to just the hammer or not.

It is crazy to me that none of our traits or survival cantrips effect the pet. That is a bizarre oversight that should definitely be remedied. If this is indeed meant to be a melee brawler pet spec then the pets ALSO need active defense in order to survive the conditions of the battlefield that the ranger can survive. The Untamed's heal actively killing the pet is also just bizarre. What a spec like this needs is a heal that revives the pet so we have another avenue of getting it back on its feet. The pet is already going to be getting overwhelmed with massive incoming damage and can't mitigate it as well as the ranger can. Why give us a skill that takes its health, which is harder to maintain and restore, and give it to the ranger? It makes no sense and I can't see anyone running this heal.

Yah, I understand that complaint. Though I also understand why. Even just using the archetypes that'd be 15 new skills on top of the hammer's 10 new skills and the utilities to design. And while they aren't NEW having direct control of the old pet skills does add more toys to play with for each pet species all the same. Plus this way does have an advantage in that you don't need to weigh the effectiveness of two different sets of pet skills per pet choice. You also don't need to worry about situations like the fire wyvern being a Deadly pet and getting condi skills even though its main toolkit is chiefly power oriented. Or marsh drake getting support skills even though nothing about its main skillset is meant for support. Or whole archetypes being less appealing because their abilities aren't useful.

It only changes your hammer skills, but it also gives a 15% boost to damage and 10% boost to incoming damage, so it still effects all our damage dealing moves. Just not as dramatically as it does hammer. It will also change your pet's skills no matter what weapon you have equipped.

At least we still have weapon swap. And while hammer is most in-tune with the spec's mechanic it isn't strictly necessary to use the mechanic, it just benefits the most from it. Longbow or Greatsword getting 15% more damage while Unleashed is still a decent buff, and I could see Longbow benefitting a fair bit from an Unleashed pet in the enemy's face while the ranger sits back and looses arrows at the target.

None unfortunately, though he did say it is something they considered and are still considering. So it isn't totally impossible but as of now fairly unlikely.

To be fair, bear has been useless for nine years because ALL it can do is endure. It has unimpressive damage output and its F2s tend to be underwhelming. But with Unleashed it has access to more damage, a teleport, projectile hate, and AoE damage/poison application. Suddenly the tanky bear has more utility and the ability to survive a bit longer in AoE intensive environments might have more value than it did before. Granted I doubt a few seconds of Invuln will be that big of a game changer, but the Unleashed skills are a pretty big equalizer among our pets that might make pets that used to see little to no use get a second glance.

I am pretty satisfied with what I've seen. We're FINALLY getting a teleport on the pet (something I've been advocating for for years now) which will solve a lot of our pathing issues. I also like the Unleashed pet skills. It'll give us more things to do with our pet and take more advantage of pet positioning. I know this spec is designed around the hammer but I think you'd get good results out of the longbow and our new AoE producing pet bombs. I am also amused that we're getting some mechanics I was rather recently told our elite spec could never give us (condi cleanse, boon hate on pet, high pet damage on controlled targets). I am concerned for the pet's survivability though. It seems like Anet went to great lengths to give the ranger tools to survive in a zerg environment but neglected to make sure the pet benefits from those too. This is definitely something to bring up during the beta event. Our pet should benefit from at least some of our survival traits and cantrips. For similar reasons I am not fond of the heal skill. It seems backwards to have a spec focused on empowering the pet and have a heal skill that actively kills the pet at the same time. In its current state I'll probably never use it. But oh well, we have other healing options anyway.

Understandable for you. For a lot of people though there's a pretty big gap between turrets and drones and a full sized mecha you can command. It is kind of like the difference between Batman and Ironman. Batman has a toolbelt with gadgets and a cool car. Ironman wears a suit of flying power armor.

"People who violate the Terms of Use because they're too weak willed to control their temper tantrums should not be punished for it" is such a weird take. Wanting Anet to actually police their community isn't a matter of being strong or weak. It is a matter of quality control. If someone isn't mature enough to play the game without foaming at the mouth and screaming when they think someone made a mistake they aren't mature enough to play an online game and shouldn't be allowed to. We as a community should also call that behavior what it is; socially unacceptable. Making excuses or trying to paint the victims as emotionally weak will only validate the toxic behavior and make them feel in the right for doing it.

I really hope Anet has at least a few different mecha skins available for the Mechanist to choose from. There doesn't need to be new skills or whathaveyou like with ranger pets but choice in aesthetic would be a huge boon.

You're asking a question of theme and then trying to answer it with a gameplay discussion. That might be what is making it difficult to understand the other side's opinion. Having a huge robot that your character built and can customize is a MASSIVE chunk of the engineer fantasy that hasn't been made playable yet. People who play engineer for the theme of the class rather than purely the gameplay are going to be excited to be able to explore another avenue of that class fantasy. It is as simple as that. It isn't a matter of "more experienced engineers will hate it" or "only noob engineers want this". It is a matter of what the individual plays the class for in the end. Theme or gameplay. Which itself is a spectrum. I am sure there are tons of engineer mains who are excited for the new theme but are wary of the potential for the gameplay to be bad and thus fall somewhere in the middle of your two poll options.

That is some interesting new information. It sounds like our pets will basically have two sets of skills now. Their normal skills, which we have more direct access to now, and an Unleashed set of skills. Coupled with Hammer having a similar set up and us getting cantrips... I think Untamed is basically rangers getting some tricks from the elementalist class. I am excited about that prospect. More abilities and more direct control means this spec will likely have a higher skill ceiling to master. Cantrips are also some of the most fun skills in the game with the most interesting and cool looking effects, so if our cantrips follow in that vein I'll be quite content. Stances and our glyphs both proved to be really boring to use for me. Hopefully our cantrips will be more fun.