The Catalyst (new Ele e-spec) is the specialization that rangers needed.

[Lazze.9870]

13 hours ago, Ehecatl.9172 said:

Ah, so we've reached the point where you're just going to insult me and cast doubt on my competence, then?

If you take it as on insult, that's entirely on you. I'm personally tired of reading the same old responses of "they could make it work" with nothing of substance.

They can give stability through the e-spec? Really? You think they're gonna provide the same amount of stability which the guardian in your party would pump out? No. You're pet is gonna be stripped for boons and CC locked in a couple of seconds.

"Why do you assume Anet can't add more ways to share boons attached to that traitline? I mean heck, that'd be pretty basic for any spec meant to use the pet heavily."

Because it already exist within the core class. Which means they either have to double up on something the core class can already provide, or they give the elite spec weaker, small boon share options that aren't gonna be enough. Pretty basic? Yeah, I'm already one step ahead of you.

And that's just one out of dozens of problems. The core mechanic of this class is so ridiculously far off what works in large scale WvW, that to think a pet focused elite spec that has any resemblance of the core mechanic would actually work is completely delusional. A ranger spec that relies on any AI at all is gonna have a real hard time breaking into the meta, or even be half as useful as soulbeast currently is. Best case it will be like druid; the pet is permanently dead, but at least you have a second mechanic that is somewhat useful.

Before we can even think about having a pet elite spec break into the WvW meta it would AT LEAST need the following:
- Better pathing
- Evade frame on ranger dodges
- Fortifying Bond baseline
- Shorter cast times and aftercast on abilites
- Better gap closers, preferable on demand
- Better AoE/PBAoE access 

Keep in mind that people are already annoyed by the pet mechanic as it is right now in PvP. Anet nerfed birds and tiger because fragile damage pets did damage. They have nerfed soulbeast for roaming capabilites in WvW. The things the pet needs to be functional in large scale WvW would make it broken for PvP and small scale/solo roaming.

Either way, assuming it got those things we could start measuring what the spec would actually bring to the table compared to the other options. It's not gonna replace the Firebrand/scrapper combo for support. So the question is if it can buff and damage like a herald, boonstrip and damage like a necro or damage like a DH/core guard. If not, then it's relegated to the optional 5th spot. Can it CC and boonstrip like a spellbreaker comboed with an overpowered ability like the bubble? Does it have useful utility like a mesmer? Damage like a weaver? However way you slice it, all those roles are better done without a pet than with one.

Edited September 24, 2021 by Lazze.9870

[Lazze.9870]

11 hours ago, Acyk.9671 said:

The best ranger for large scale in WvW wouldn't really focus on damage. It would be something between a jalis rev and a scourge

 

That's not the point of what I'm saying. I'm arguing for why an elite spec with a focus on the pet mechanic would be tied down to those traitlines.

Besides, it depends entirely on the mechanic. Soulbeast was primed for a damage role, it just lacks good zerg weapons.

 

Edited September 24, 2021 by Lazze.9870

[anduriell.6280]

On 9/22/2021 at 11:09 PM, Kilrik.6320 said:

 

I sadly agree.  This is ominous and similar to druid and the indecisive astral farce scenario they went through with so many different variations on gaining astral force.  Then smokescale and bristleback which actually hit targets were nerfed within weeks.  For a while, they even changed out the most useful f2 in the game (imo) on smokescale from smoke field to the smoke assault.  Ranger was the side thought class in HoT.  Which begs the question, will it be the same for this expansion?

Concerning the other thought....

A beastmaster was an outstanding choice for gw1, where as it was said before, it could work since targets were more stationary.  This game, the Ai seems similar to gw1, but players are constantly moving and shadowstepping.  Since day one, I've seen countless videos where pets can't land a hit on a moving target that's moving at in-combat speed with no buffs, because of animation cast delays.  The newer expansion pets are slightly better and they tried speeding up animations for all, but the pet mechanics are unreliable to this day for consistent damage and with their damage calculated in the overall ranger damage it's a net negative.  So I would vote a BIG NOOOO on a beastmaster spec for gw2, esp if they intended to make an actual aoe wvw group useful ranger spec.  Take the pet away completely for that. It would be cool to see a wvw group asking for rangers instead of constantly kittening on them in team chat. Roaming is fine, but group play might be fun without having to change professions.

I do heartfuly agree with your comment. Also this may be a hot take but the “beast master specialization” should be core ranger, it is the main mechanic which set it apart from other professions.

 

Asking for a new specialization to fix the core mechanic brings new questions:

- does that means the other specializations/core keep the crappy mechanics? 
- Does the new spec get to play with new exclusive pets? If so that means core will not get new pets?

- wouldn’t that be a paywall to enjoy the class? 

 

So no, the improved pets should  come to core and must not to be locked behind an specialization.

 

 

[AlexndrTheGreat.8310]

4 hours ago, anduriell.6280 said:

So no, the improved pets should  come to core and must not to be locked behind an specialization.

I strongly agree with this statement as well. I really don’t think we should have to wait for an elite spec to be able to play what core Ranger is basically already trying to offer. Feels like such a waste of an elite spec if we have “two elites and then Base Ranger+“.

[Ehecatl.9172]

15 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

If you take it as on insult, that's entirely on you. I'm personally tired of reading the same old responses of "they could make it work" with nothing of substance.

 

 

Calling someone delusional is, in fact, an insult. 

 

And I'm personally tired of reading people judge a concept that doesn't even exist yet as if they can see the future. You can't. Everything you've said are your personal thoughts on the game's design and why you can't imagine the elite spec working. But it also misses my ultimate point.

 

Anet CAN give the pet stability if they want. They CAN make the pet immune to crowd control if they want. They can make the pet an immobile totem that can't be targeted if they want or remove the pet mechanic entirely like you want. The class and its mechanics are highly malleable. It is just a matter of coming up with a design that works and fine tuning it.

 

Look at your own post. You're not arguing "they can't." You're arguing "they won't." You don't believe Anet will add the mechanics the ranger needs. And for good reason, even. Years of neglect doesn't spark much faith.

 

But my argument isn't that Anet WILL do these things. Only that they COULD if, and only if, they really committed to making an elite spec like that.

 

Just like they COULD have made druid a solid support option for more than just raids or they COULD have designed soulbeast to bring more utility to big group fights than it currently does.

 

If our next elite spec is crap it won't be because it does or does not rely on the pet mechanic. It'll be because Anet gives a crap about making the ranger spec viable or don't.

 

Quote

So the question is if it can buff and damage like a herald, boonstrip and damage like a necro or damage like a DH/core guard. If not, then it's relegated to the optional 5th spot. Can it CC and boonstrip like a spellbreaker comboed with an overpowered ability like the bubble? Does it have useful utility like a mesmer? Damage like a weaver? However way you slice it, all those roles are better done without a pet than with one.

 

Thinking about it a bit, boonstrip on the pet would be pretty thematically interesting. Hammer for stuns and controlling the enemy and maybe the Physical utility set that give our active pet/pets special moves that can strip or steal boons from the target.

Edited September 24, 2021 by Ehecatl.9172

[Lazze.9870]

10 hours ago, Ehecatl.9172 said:

can't imagine the elite spec working

 

I have given you the reasons it currently doesn't work and some of the things it needs before we can even talk about how it would rate against current meta builds.

You keep repeating "they could do this, they could do that" and that I "can't see into the future". No, of course I can't. But at least I'm realistic. 

It's not just years of neglect from Anet, it is the very LARGE amount of very SPECIFIC things they need to give a spec like that to function in WvW. And this needs to happen with a spec that is releasing at a time where Anet is very cautious with trade-offs and not making the new specs too good (because from the beta, they are all borderline trash at the moment with a few passable exceptions depending on how you play them). And it needs to be done while still being balanced for small scale and PvP.

Whatever this spec is, I imagine it has some CCs, and I would like to some boon removal. But if that boon remvoval is done through the pet, it's already useless for large scale. Spellbreaker does aoe boon strips spamming their hammer CC skills, break enchantments and their bubble. You're not gonna compete with that if the ranger's way of doing it is giving the pet a buff that removes or steal boons on its next attacks.

Soulbeast with its very rudamentery way of trading off the pet for skills, some stats and new trait interactions + its decent stances to share is leaps better than core ranger even without a useful new weapon (this is the biggest problem with soulbeast and wvw btw, not lack of utilities). The best, easiest and most realistic way to give ranger a role in WvW group fights is to ditch the pet entirely. This can obviously be done in several ways and visually the pet can still be there for all I care. But any mechanic that has to go through the AI makes it clunkier than it has to be and immediately puts it at a disadvantage. That's even with all the necessities I listed in the previous post.

I think it is more likely that they wake up and give druid(+core) the necessary changes for it to be "accepted" into the wvw meta (to some extent) than for a beastmaster to accomplish anything at all. And I'm saying that doubting they will ever touch druid again.

Edited September 25, 2021 by Lazze.9870

[Ehecatl.9172]

11 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

 

I have given you the reasons it currently doesn't work and some of the things it needs before we can even talk about how it would rate against current meta builds.

You keep repeating "they could do this, they could do that" and that I "can't see into the future". No, of course I can't. But at least I'm realistic. 

 

You have, and I do appreciate the effort you put into the responses. And I'll even acknowledge that it would take a LOT of work to make a viable beastmaster elite spec work. My argument is only that if Anet wanted to put the work in they could produce something viable. It isn't literally impossible, and people who want something like it aren't being foolish for wanting it.

 

I also think that the level of work that it'd take is exactly why we're probably never going to see a major pet rework outside of the context of an elite spec that relies on that mechanic, but that is just my personal opinion.

 

Quote

I think it is more likely that they wake up and give druid(+core) the necessary changes for it to be "accepted" into the wvw meta (to some extent) than for a beastmaster to accomplish anything at all. And I'm saying that doubting they will ever touch druid again.

 

Reworking our support elite spec to be viable in big groups would be a LOT easier than trying to make a viable pet spec for the same role, I'll agree with you there.

 

Anet consistently drops the ball when it comes to ranger.

[Crackmonster.2790]

Lets go

Your pet gains stability for 5 seconds every 2 seconds
Pets do 50% more damage
Utility Skill to rebirth pet with 3 stability and protection for 8s with 20s cooldown

"omg rangers are so overpowred in 1v1"

laughs in kiting in circles with immobs

Edited September 30, 2021 by Crackmonster.2790

[anduriell.6280]

On 9/25/2021 at 12:50 AM, Ehecatl.9172 said:

Calling someone delusional is, in fact, an insult. 

My advise would be to ignore such comments, lazze and swagger they share the same way of sharing their input in an non-constructive way and seems to think belitering other people opinions is a good strategy to deffend their position. 

 

On 9/25/2021 at 11:03 PM, Ehecatl.9172 said:

My argument is only that if Anet wanted to put the work in they could produce something viable. It isn't literally impossible, and people who want something like it aren't being foolish for wanting it.

I agree with that opinion, the problems with druid are more complex that "just buffing the elite spec". 

If druid would be the core profession and ranger the elite specialization it would be possible to fix it .
In current form it can't because if you buff the support, the core interactions are also buffed in the same way making a ranged damage dealer which can not be defeated. We already have seen that during the short bunker druid meta. 

Traits like Druidic Clarity and Celestial Shadow are also a problem but even if that would not be the case, just having more consistent access to healing skills would bring back the unkillable druid. That won't be  good. 

Druid needs a good rework where it loses most access to the pet skills while in avatar mode and at the same time avatar skills are very limited on what they do. Also deleting the traits i mentioned above. 

Edited September 30, 2021 by anduriell.6280
some grammar here and there and smol correction on the quote.

[Bealis.6023]

For Ranger we could get a ranged version of a Spellbreaker, with pet being kind of a bulwark (as distinction from both Catalyst and Spellbreaker ).

While it would seem promising for WvW, I dont like the idea of a ranged hammer. Why hammer then at all? 🙄 We need something more "punchy" for pve roaming while exploring Cantha.

Second concern I have is with the weapon skills. They need to feel different from greatsword and at the same time not bearing the main ingredient for the elite spec efectiveness (like Catalyst has with the hammer #3 skills), since we would like to try all other weapons with the spec.

[Dezember.1295]

Oh dear, this situation seriously got out of hand rather quickly. Regarding the coming elite specs of the ranger, and pet spec vs.  petless spec, this would be my take:

My doodles for a pet-based ranger for those who enjoy the beastmaster theme: 
 

Spoiler

 

For the record - I do not really agree with the argument that "core ranger has a pet- go play that if you want a pet" for the same reason that people argue that "soulbeast is not a petless ranger." Core has a pet. Core has some synergy with a pet. But it is literally a basic version of the pet that soulbeast (SB from now on) could access just as easily. The "synergy" is limited to some boon sharing and swap buffs - other than that, the pet is a turret that follows the enemy target while you pewpew from afar. Most people I've spoken to that want a beastmaster spec doesn't want that. They want a INTERACTIVE pet that we can control, and that has attacks tied to our own abilities.

So, of course - no matter how I think about this - a beastmaster spec would never be suitable for WvW zergs. If they are tuned to survive and manage in WvW, then they would *PROBABLY* be extremely overtuned in sPvP and roaming. So if I'd design a pet-based ranger, then I'd drop the idea of it being anything better than "Good" at best, or "terribad" at worst for WvW zerging.

 

So what would I do? To actually have a working beastmaster ranger (other than rework pets, which Anet really should) - I would take a look at BDO's Tamer. Black Desert Online's combat is very fast phased, and the Tamer kit shows us a lot of things that is required for fast-phased combat where the player is both melee and a pet user.

Sooo... What exactly would that include? First of all, the pet is often molded into the abilities of the tamer. When the tamer attacks, the pet teleport and smash the ground together with the tamer. The pet can also merge with the tamer for short abilities - such as shielding, or turn into a cloud of claws around the tamer in a AoE frenzy. The Tamer pet is not just an AI robot that tries to follow the target with it's own attacks beside the caster, but it is a PART of the tamer's abilities and attacks.
 

So what am I actually suggesting? I am suggesting, like Anduriell mentioned, another type of pets - unique to the elite spec as it would be too much work to use all the regular pets on a individual level with this concept. Call it "celestial pet", call it "spirit beasts", call it "jade beast", call it "George" - it doesn't really matter. A "beastmaster" (cannot come up with a good name right now) would not just have a pet that they fight alongside, but a pet that they wield pretty much as a weapon (yes, you may imagine your character hitting someone with a bear). Allow the attacks of the Hammer to actually affect the pet directly - if the hammer has a slam; cause the slam to teleport the pet in, and maul the ground. Allow the hammer auto-attacks to have a third/fourth hit that teleport the pet behind the target to bite their butt. If the hammer has a dash, allow the dash to affect the pet as well - perhaps the pet momentarily merges with the caster to boost their speed or interrupt the enemy on impact?

 

In general, I am not too keen on a true petless ranger right after the soulbeast. I respect those who want a "true" petless ranger, but I sympathize more with the rangers that chose ranger for pet-combat and now are stuck with core if they want to use a pet. I truly believe that SB would be perfect for WvW, if only our weapons weren't trash for big zergs. Hammer would probably be one of the types of weapons that we would really need for WvW zerging, but I simply cannot imagine Anet doing something close to SB in the very expansion after PoF.

I would hope that they could somehow make a more pet-oriented ranger suitable for WvW - but I must admit I find it... Unlikely, to say the least. However, I would believe that Anet should be aware of Ranger's awkward position in WvW - and hence I would believe that they are trying to do something about it. To be quite honest - I have no idea what they are going to do (except hammer), but I hope it will at least be something that at least a fair share of the ranger community will feel enthusiastic about.

Personally, I am a huge fan of not just the class fantasy, but also the playstyle of the SB - so I doubt I am going to let go of it unless the new elite spec is really interesting. *ESPECIALLY* since we're getting a hammer and hammer does not click well with my personal pick for the ranger class fantasy. All the power to those who are happy about it, though. :] I am still crossing my fingers for a proper summoning class (no, not minion master - one giga summon! Final Fantasy 10 style <3 ), and/or a reversed version of the Soul beast - similar to the ghost heart ranger in Pillars of Eternity! :D AND LET'S NOT FORGET THE ARCANE ARCHER, please Anet - give elementalists a bow. q _ q

 

[Aedil.1296]

Omg please take the Catalyst is all yours!! We don't want it nor need it!!!! 

 

/back to Ele forum

[anduriell.6280]

8 hours ago, Aedil.1296 said:

Omg please take the Catalyst is all yours!! We don't want it nor need it!!!! 

 

/back to Ele forum

Thank you, I hate it! 

 

Now real talk thou, i have not experience with ele so bear with me, but the only thing that did not work for the new elite was how the hammer was too slow and felt clunky, am i correct?
If so it is still salvageable maybe. 

[HotHit.6783]

4 hours ago, anduriell.6280 said:

Thank you, I hate it! 

 

Now real talk thou, i have not experience with ele so bear with me, but the only thing that did not work for the new elite was how the hammer was too slow and felt clunky, am i correct?
If so it is still salvageable maybe. 

I didn't have time to go super deep on Catalyst, but from my small amount of playtime the Hammer was the best bit. While it's everything relating to the Jade Sphere that needs work. The short version is the bar functions like Druid's Astral Force did during the original beta (Burns all energy when leaving combat or turning off the sphere early). Except unlike Druid, there's not really any way to accelerate the energy gain. All the Augments' bonus effects require the stars to align of your sphere being active, being in its tiny circle and being in the right attunement. A lot of the Elite spec wants you to sit in that circle spamming combos too, while the hammer (reasonably) has a lot of skills for moving about.

The mechanics don't line up well together and you're barely allowed to use the Jade Sphere so you rarely get to use half of them.

[Aedil.1296]

@anduriell.6280

Oh dear hammer was nonsense, but the worst was the F5 and utilities.

@HotHit.6783

Exactly that.

Plus making the most squishy and dynamic class standing still inside those sphere fields without any sustain mechanic neither from traits nor skills (cause let's be honest those augment skills do not augment nothing really lol). 

By the way, a gameplay forcing to stand still in Gw2 is a massive fail as the best thing of the game has always been the fluid and dynamic combat system. It's like going backward instead of improving and moving forward (just madness really). 

I was dying against kittening mosquitoes with that!!! 🤣

 

Edited October 13, 2021 by Aedil.1296

[Xanadrine.4352]

On 9/16/2021 at 10:12 PM, Loules.8601 said:

Well… catalyst, if we believe in press-realise - mid-range (fire/earth) + melee (storm/water), not really melee 

600 range on furthest skill, but anyway you dont want them to do to ranger what they did to cata. Just take a look at the ele forums to see what a mess it is. 

[Kodama.6453]

4 hours ago, Aedil.1296 said:

@anduriell.6280

Oh dear hammer was nonsense, but the worst was the F5 and utilities.

@HotHit.6783

Exactly that.

Plus making the most squishy and dynamic class standing still inside those sphere fields without any sustain mechanic neither from traits nor skills (cause let's be honest those augment skills do not augment nothing really lol). 

By the way, a gameplay forcing to stand still in Gw2 is a massive fail as the best thing of the game has always been the fluid and dynamic combat system. It's like going backward instead of improving and moving forward (just madness really). 

I was dying against kittening mosquitoes with that!!! 🤣

 

They "force" catalyst in staying in that circle for a reason.

It seems that catalyst is supposed to be a bruiser spec. Not entirely true that you don't get extra sustain on it, since it comes with defensive skills with barriers, blocks, heals, condi cleanse, etc.

Now there is the fact that elementalist is one of the most mobile classes in the game, they probably thought that a bruiser spec with that much mobility available wouldn't be healthy.

It's the same reason why deadeye on rifle is forced to kneel and stay in a place. Because they thought that high range combined with thief mobility is toxic.

Could very well be that the class is not tuned correctly right now, but I see the design intent here. They shackle catalyst to an area to make it not frustrating to fight a bruiser spec which has insane amounts of mobility.

[Aedil.1296]

3 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

They "force" catalyst in staying in that circle for a reason.

It seems that catalyst is supposed to be a bruiser spec. Not entirely true that you don't get extra sustain on it, since it comes with defensive skills with barriers, blocks, heals, condi cleanse, etc.

Now there is the fact that elementalist is one of the most mobile classes in the game, they probably thought that a bruiser spec with that much mobility available wouldn't be healthy.

It's the same reason why deadeye on rifle is forced to kneel and stay in a place. Because they thought that high range combined with thief mobility is toxic.

Could very well be that the class is not tuned correctly right now, but I see the design intent here. They shackle catalyst to an area to make it not frustrating to fight a bruiser spec which has insane amounts of mobility.

Barrier? Oh you mean that useless augment utility where I need to be in earth to get that very little barrier. 

Heals? We have a blast but is in air if I remember so the aoe is no more a water field, and if u think about the heal skill u need to be in water to get the most out of it (!?) 

Blocks? That's only 1 skill in hammer earth and u cannot do anything while u channel it, for that 1 second that it lasts with a huge CD. 

All this while trying to manage energy, doing very low damage and at the same time fighting for my life. 

Cause seriously Ele in general is fighting for your life unless u go bunker/celestial or heal tempest and your damage is bye bye. 

Even when you're zerker your damage is not comparable to other classes unless you know a 50 skills rotation and u never fail at it, still while trying to stay alive. 

Please, don't defend Catalyst, its just undefendable, and I'm not alone saying this. 

Thanks. 

[Kodama.6453]

6 hours ago, Aedil.1296 said:

Barrier? Oh you mean that useless augment utility where I need to be in earth to get that very little barrier. 

Heals? We have a blast but is in air if I remember so the aoe is no more a water field, and if u think about the heal skill u need to be in water to get the most out of it (!?) 

Blocks? That's only 1 skill in hammer earth and u cannot do anything while u channel it, for that 1 second that it lasts with a huge CD. 

All this while trying to manage energy, doing very low damage and at the same time fighting for my life. 

Cause seriously Ele in general is fighting for your life unless u go bunker/celestial or heal tempest and your damage is bye bye. 

Even when you're zerker your damage is not comparable to other classes unless you know a 50 skills rotation and u never fail at it, still while trying to stay alive. 

Please, don't defend Catalyst, its just undefendable, and I'm not alone saying this. 

Thanks. 

There are 3 blast finishers in the hammer kit: air 5, earth 5, fire 5. So literally any element but water has a blast finisher to combo the water combo field with.

That you say "it's in air, so the AoE is no longer a water combo field" tells me that you missed how to utilise catalyst. Anet even mentioned in the stream that you are supposed to cast the blast finisher of an element (like, say, earth 5), then swap to water during the cast time.

Attunement swap has no cast time, so you can switch to the desired combo field while casting a combo finisher.

On top of these blast finishers, there is also a leap finisher in water 4, which will also heal when comboed with the water combo field. And look at that, that skill also heals additionally for every foe struck!

Blocks: you just mention the hammer block, completely missing that there is also a utility skill which will block attacks for 3 seconds with fortified earth.

Let's see what more defense we can find in catalyst.

• Water orb (hammer 3) lets you take reduced condition damage
• Earth orb (hammer 3) lets you take reduced strike damage
• Weakness application through the introduction of a poison combo field (earth)
• Condi cleanse on water 5 (hammer)
• Increased endurance regeneration (invigorating air)
• Damage reduction when you gain an aura
• Stability gain when you gain an aura
• Increased stats when you gain an aura (which includes defensive stats like vitality/toughness/healing power)
• More access to defensive measures ele already had access to (frost aura, vigor, resistance, etc.)

Your list there has just told me that you neither have knowledge of all the tools available in the catalyst kit (since you missed many blasts/blocks/heals/etc. there), nor do you actually know how to utilise these tools (since you said stuff like "the blast finisher is in air, so we have no water combo field").

So this just shows me that people first have to get familiar with the elite spec and actually learn it, before they come to these conclusions.

Edited October 14, 2021 by Kodama.6453

[HotHit.6783]

3 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

There are 3 blast finishers in the hammer kit: air 5, earth 5, fire 5. So literally any element but water has a blast finisher to combo the water combo field with.

That you say "it's in air, so the AoE is no longer a water combo field" tells me that you missed how to utilise catalyst. Anet even mentioned in the stream that you are supposed to cast the blast finisher of an element (like, say, earth 5), then swap to water during the cast time.

Attunement swap has no cast time, so you can switch to the desired combo field while casting a combo finisher.

On top of these blast finishers, there is also a leap finisher in water 4, which will also heal when comboed with the water combo field. And look at that, that skill also heals additionally for every foe struck!

I did say the the hammer was the best part... But I would like to add that the combos working in reverse isn't necessarily a good thing. Every other combo is either performed in the same attunement or by putting a field and switching to the finisher, rather than setting the field, using the finisher and switching to the right element after the fact. From a design standpoint it's quite unintuitive.

Again, this alone isn't really a good or bad design, it's arguably on the side of good since an Elite Specialisation is supposed to significantly change your playstyle. But it is an extra bullet point on the list of usability problems the Catalyst has.

[Kodama.6453]

35 minutes ago, HotHit.6783 said:

I did say the the hammer was the best part... But I would like to add that the combos working in reverse isn't necessarily a good thing. Every other combo is either performed in the same attunement or by putting a field and switching to the finisher, rather than setting the field, using the finisher and switching to the right element after the fact. From a design standpoint it's quite unintuitive.

Again, this alone isn't really a good or bad design, it's arguably on the side of good since an Elite Specialisation is supposed to significantly change your playstyle. But it is an extra bullet point on the list of usability problems the Catalyst has.

Kinda true, this seems to be a problem in general with the new elite specs. Anet announced that they are going to break some rules and will be pretty unconventional here and it shows.

It's the same for other stuff people complain about not working or being useless on other elite specs. Looking at these complaints, most really come down to people not really understanding how they are supposed to work with the elite spec and that's why they fail to use it.

Which comes back to the elite specs being designed in an unintuitive way. Many work in a way we are not used to in this game and if people try to use them exactly as previous elite specs, this causes problems.

However, if people grow more familiar with the mechanics of the new elite specs, I think that many problems about their usability will vanish.

[Lazze.9870]

On 10/5/2021 at 11:54 PM, Dezember.1295 said:

but I sympathize more with the rangers that chose ranger for pet-combat and now are stuck with core if they want to use a pet.

 

I sympathize even more so for the people that played this class in GW1 when pets were optional, and who want to play this class in GW2 because no other class cover its theme. Preferable without having to drag this underdeveloped pet mechanic around no matter what you spec into.

I sympathize less for people who have unrealistic ideas on how we could get "an even better" pet mechanic than core has. What is even the point of core ranger if we get a beastmaster elite spec? To be a jack-of-all-trades with a meh mechanic forever?

[HotHit.6783]

2 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

I sympathize even more so for the people that played this class in GW1 when pets were optional, and who want to play this class in GW2 because no other class cover its theme. Preferable without having to drag this underdeveloped pet mechanic around no matter what you spec into.

I was an Assassin main, back in the day, so my perspective may be skewed. But this train of thought applied to Thief's mechanics is primarily why I play Ranger and Engineer instead. Initiative, Stealth and Stealing don't match up at all with Critical Strikes and Attack Chaining. I don't think any profession was translated perfectly.

Edited October 15, 2021 by HotHit.6783

[Lazze.9870]

2 hours ago, HotHit.6783 said:

I was an Assassin main, back in the day, so my perspective may be skewed. But this train of thought applied to Thief's mechanics is primarily why I play Ranger and Engineer instead. Initiative, Stealth and Stealing don't match up at all with Critical Strikes and Attack Chaining. I don't think any profession was translated perfectly.

 

Ranger is in many ways translated fine into GW2, it's not that. Thief isn't an Assassin, hence the name change. It's derived from Assassin.

Initative, stealth and steal work. Pets don't. Pets used to be optional, now they are not. They forced ranger to be a pet class which was never the case in GW1. And not only has that resulted in a mechanic that always have had bug issues, but it also limits what they can do with elite specs unless they are fine with completely petless specs.

[anduriell.6280]

On 10/15/2021 at 2:49 PM, Lazze.9870 said:

I sympathize less for people who have unrealistic ideas on how we could get "an even better" pet mechanic than core has. What is even the point of core ranger if we get a beastmaster elite spec? To be a jack-of-all-trades with a meh mechanic forever?

That is a very good point and i don't think is being talked about enough. 

Let's entertain that idea for a minute that ranger do get a new elite spec a beastmaster with improved pet mechanics. 
 

1. Does that mean the rest of the specializations and core are left with the crappy version? 
2. Will pet's work differently? If so does that mean this new spec get access to better pets? 
3. Would not be that p2w? Or at least consided as some sort of manipulation (more than usual) into forcing players to buy the new expansion?
4. Would that not make Core totally useless and irrelevant? How would that impact F2P players checking the game? 
5. Woudln't that greatly increase the toxicity against rangers in general? "You can't play fractals with us unless you bring the improved pets". 
6. A new spec providing a better pet mechanic is not anything different from core. Just better. 
    

Definitely the "beastmastery elite spec" should be Core ranger. It is the specialization wich is totally dependent on the pet and it makes no sense to be asking for something which is part of another specialization. From my point of view asking that is like asking a new specialization which will provide a better avatar and gliphs mechanics because Druid didn't work.