Untamed Feedback Thread

[InsaneQR.7412]

After second beta: Overall decent. Numbers could need some tweaking.

 

One issue remains though.

Hammer. I like hammer in both modes but i would prefer hammer more if it would be like all other weapons with no form changes. So maybe put 2-3 CC skill on hammer and give you bonus damage against CC foes for the other skills and keep it at that. Setting up CCs for hammer damage is tedious and not really fluent. I rather want to switch modes for the ambush instead.

Edited December 2, 2021 by InsaneQR.7412
Writing is hard

[TheAgedGnome.7520]

Gotta say, I'm having fun with Untamed, but using Axe/Torch + SB in a Cele build.

• Celestial armor/trinkets w/Traveler Runes
• Celestial axe/torch and shortbow 
• Traits:
  • Wilderness Survival 3-1-2
  • Beastmaster 2-3-3
  • Untamed 3-2-3
• Perilous Gift, Exploding Spores, Lightning Reflexes, Unnatural Traversal, Forest Fortification
• Iboga & Jacaranda

Its all open-world, but that's what I care about.

• Shortbow Ambush should be AoE around the target, instead of switching to ground-targeting.  
• Hammer is ok, but is 'just ok'. I see no compelling reason to use it.
• On F5, change the icon for Unleash Ranger to face to the right, to add more distinction between the two modes. I mentioned this in previous beta.

[Unicorn Luna.5204]

I just logged my untamed to have a little look. I feel that the lowered visual cue for unleashed modes is more removed than it needs to be - actually I didn't mind at all that there was an effect it just is a yucky swamp colour that looked like stink. Now it's very brief and looks like it's been changed to look better despite the still awful colour. Not sure if it was just the armour I was wearing that made it look a bit different as the armour effect disappears so quickly.

I still don't understand the concept of a losing a chunk of weapon skill damage to switch a few skills for the pet that will now access its default skills to do more damage with than it's leashed skills. I will come back to this one, just it was the only class I gave a 0/10 for in the previous beta and I wanted to see if it improved. I guess it's with practice I'll understand what this power juggling is about.

[lion.2378]

Overall I think they improved the spec a lot between the two betas. I like the ambush abilities and the other buffs are good.

 

But the one big thing I've realized after playing yesterday is the unleash mechanic just seems tacked on for flavor and doesn't really serve any purpose.

 

The whole point of passing unleashed to your pet at this point is to spam their 3 skills and activate your ambush. Otherwise you just keep it on yourself until you're able to ambush again. There's no benefit or strategy in having your pet stay unleashed other than some super minor defensive bonuses that aren't needed and some CC if you happen to be using hammer.

 

They need to make unleashed buff your pet as well, such as making the minor grandmaster give your pet the 15% damage bonus when it's unleashed. Not sure if that would make it worth having your pet unleashed, but it would be a start.

 

Also one final thing, I would like to have the ability to set the normal pet skills to autocast. I like having the option to manually use them, but there's a lot of skills that I don't need to time properly. They're just for DPS and have short cool downs, which makes them annoying to spam.

Edited December 1, 2021 by lion.2378

[Beddo.1907]

Round 2 of Feedback part 2:

-pets don't trigger non pet exclusive traits which removes a lot of rangers synergy.

-ranger has practically no CC outside of Hammer making Fervent Force a poor choice.

-Hammer still feels a bit awkward when it comes to fighting moving targets since there is a lot of long windups. A bit of built in swiftness into the weapon is needed to keep up without having to burn skills to keep up.

-Ferocious Symbiosis needs condi multipiers.

[Hydrolysis.6810]

It would be nice if you would remap "attack my target" and "return to me" to profession skill 1 and profession skill 3 for consistency or change them on core, druid and soulbeast. It’s kind of difficult for someone who constantly switches elite spec to get used to especially since it's doing the same function on a new key even if you rebound. Imagine if you spontaneously switch fire attunement to profession skill 6 on an elite spec.
 
While I like the ambush skills (immobilize on the axe is great), can you please consider one of two options:
1. make it available while off CD when unleashed (every 15sec or 20 sec).
2. put back the cd on the unleash and remove it from the ambush skill (so whenever I unleased I know my auto will do the ambush).
Just saying it’s a bit difficult to juggle so many CDs mentally and I constantly miss the opportunity to use it because I was stuck in another animation for the short window when it's available after being unleashed.
 
Final thought f1 needs to be different for ranged pets please (teleport near the target (600 range) then the next attack cause venomous burst on the target. (again please make this the f6).

Edited December 4, 2021 by Hydrolysis.6810

[Soilder.3607]

In terms of Organized Squads and Zerging in WvW:

This spec will still be dead on release for anything larger than small fights (so anything above 5v5 really) because of the same issues the pet has had since launch. The pet will die instantly in zergs, the new f1-3 skills will not function when the pet is dead, pet swap is increased to 60/48 seconds when swapping out a dead pet. 

 

Case in point, my pet Smokescale and Drake died relatively quickly vs a single Celestial Weaver. About two minutes into the duel I reached the point where they both died before the pet swap had fully recharged and so I finished the remainder of the duel with my pets spending the majority of the time dead. Soulbeast didn't really have this issue because whenever you entered beastmode the pet was fully revived without a recharge increase, and even with that super buff Soulbeast still didn't reach WvW squad meta.

 

The fact is for this spec to be viable in organized squads and large zergs the pets need to be given unbalanced mechanics like ignoring 90-95% of damage that isn't targetted towards the pet, automatically receiving evasion whenever the ranger evades, automatically receiving all boons and stealth that the ranger receives etc.... If that doesn't happen untamed will not be run in zergs.

[InspectorCaracal.2970]

I still have gameplay feedback to work on and put together, but one of my biggest issues from Beta 3 is still here.

 

Unleashed mode needs to be more visible in the GUI.

 

It's still just two tiny icons that are virtually indistinguishable. It needs a full visual cue on the skill bar. Give us a green glow on the skill bar when the ranger is unleashed, at least. I know the tech is in the game, please make use of it, I'm begging you.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

PVE

Absolute TRASH TIER spec.  This thing offers nothing, NOTHING, compared to nearly every other spec in the game.  No meaningful amount of damage.  None.  No unique or interesting group support that isn't already available to every other ranger spec.  Not even an amazing amount of CC. 

I'd go so far as to say that this is THE WORST spec in the game at the moment and unless majorly buffed will remain so in PvE until the game shuts down.  Skill splits exist.  There is NO EXCUSE for this spec to not do AT LEAST Power Reaper levels of damage. 

[InspectorCaracal.2970]

All right, here we go, gameplay feedback time.

 

Unleash Cooldown change

The fast swap on Unleashed mode between the ranger and the pet feels GREAT. I love it. I was getting strong "pet kit" vibes from it the first time and changing it to the kit-speed swap cooldown really makes that work. It also helps sell the feeling of working with your pet by making it feel more like a tag-team swap.

 

Hammer skills

Giving the hammer its much-needed leap skill is a life saver, so Thank You for listening to that feedback. My muscle memory hates it being on the 5 but I can get used to it.

Also, as a note, I really like the CC-versus-power dynamic with the normal versus unleashed hammer modes, especially with the unleashed pet moves getting extra stuff on disabled foes. I'm not going to lie, I love CCs, and getting a whole new suite of them for ranger is possibly the thing I've been most excited for with Untamed since it was first announced.

 

Unleashed Pet vs Unleashed Ranger

While setting up your Unleashed pet feels really synergetic, being Unleashed myself feels... underwhelming, in the tag-team department. There's all this fantastic stuff in the spec for giving yourself bonuses against disabled foes, but while I can set that up for my pet, I can't have my pet set anything up for me unless I specifically pick a pet with a CC move. Not necessarily broken or a deal-breaker, it's just disappointing.

 

Cantrips

I'm not sure if I'll wind up hating vulnerability still but the tweaks to cantrips feel great. They rely really hard on chaining them with other moves in just the right way to be properly effective, but I think they'll be one of those things where when you pull it off it feels super good.

Also thank god we finally have a stun break.

 

WvW

I still don't run with zergs, so I can't speak for front-line viability, but all the feedback about how any mechanics relying on your pet are going to be useless is definitely true. Having more control over your pet to keep them from being steamrolled only helps if you're not on the front line.

That said, it felt potentially solid for roaming and small-group skirmishes. I think a lot of power rangers might find it a lot more complicated to play effectively than they're used to, but I like how it has so much stuff going on, even though it makes it harder to test out because I'm still on the early part of the learning curve i.e. I suck at it lol.

 

Overall Balance

I'm gonna be honest: I don't really know. I feel like running with the Marauder/Celestial gear it starts us off with should maybe be hitting harder, but it's hard to compare when I normally run condi. It could also be because I wasn't using the Unleashed hammer skills too much.

Also, since they're new, I'm going to do a full subsection here on the Unleashed Ambush skills.

 

First off: the concept is fine. Pulling in a rework of the Mirage Ambush skills is a good compromise, and I like the abilities that get stacked onto it. But.

Why are they still called Ambush skills???

That doesn't make any sense at all. We're not ambushing anyone! Nature theme aside, there's no "jumping out of the bushes" kind of thing going on here. It really needs a new name. How about Unleashed Surge? or Unleashed Burst? because it's a sudden surge of primal energy?

 

Okay, that's my immersion critique done. Moving on.

 

The shortbow Unleash skill is a problem.

Not only is it completely wrong-feeling to have a ground-target AoE on the ranger shortbow at all, but having to target the right spot on the ground during a one second window on top of all the other movement and camera controls and crap on top is just too much. I was sort of feeling like a one-second window was a little short, but I talked myself into it, because I could go for it with a quick-fire F5+1 combo concept. Not ground targeting! I don't even know how good it might be because I could never get it down in time!!

I didn't check all of the Unleash skills, just the ones on weapons I've been using a lot, but that's the only one I tried that really struck me as A Very Bad Idea.

[Amadeus.5687]

7 hours ago, Beddo.1907 said:

-Ranger has practically no CC outside of Hammer making Fervent Force a poor choice.

 

What? Ranger have plenty of CC in our kit.

Shortbow #5
Longbow #4
GS #4 + #5
Warhorn #5
Off Hand Axe #4
Even Sword have a Daze now from the ambush skill

We also have Spike Trap which is a very juciy skill to abuse with Fervent Force. Quick Draw + Fervent Force can be down right nasty

[Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582]

3 hours ago, Inventrix.3158 said:

I still have gameplay feedback to work on and put together, but one of my biggest issues from Beta 3 is still here.

 

Unleashed mode needs to be more visible in the GUI.

 

It's still just two tiny icons that are virtually indistinguishable. It needs a full visual cue on the skill bar. Give us a green glow on the skill bar when the ranger is unleashed, at least. I know the tech is in the game, please make use of it, I'm begging you.

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!

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, Amadeus.5687 said:

What? Ranger have plenty of CC in our kit.

Shortbow #5
Longbow #4
GS #4 + #5
Warhorn #5
Off Hand Axe #4
Even Sword have a Daze now from the ambush skill

We also have Spike Trap which is a very juciy skill to abuse with Fervent Force. Quick Draw + Fervent Force can be down right nasty

You got call lightning as well, the Pet CCs if they work with the trait and the occasional racial skill for WvW and PvE (Bear form, raven form, snow leopard form, wolf form, chaarzooka, powersuit crap, technobabble. Snowleopard being the most usefull of them all for WvW)

[Gotejjeken.1267]

3 hours ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

PVE

Absolute TRASH TIER spec.  This thing offers nothing, NOTHING, compared to nearly every other spec in the game.  No meaningful amount of damage.  None.  No unique or interesting group support that isn't already available to every other ranger spec.  Not even an amazing amount of CC. 

I'd go so far as to say that this is THE WORST spec in the game at the moment and unless majorly buffed will remain so in PvE until the game shuts down.  Skill splits exist.  There is NO EXCUSE for this spec to not do AT LEAST Power Reaper levels of damage. 

 

This is kind of my overall feeling as well, but I mainly play WvW.  Doing the return stuff in PvE I'd in no way take this over power SLB though.

While the changes are nice, we still have the issue of the pet itself dying way too fast, and not doing half the DPS it used to because we need to micro the skills.  That's actually complexity for no benefit.  

Also, I'm not sure if the dev's realize how much personal damage we're losing due to the synergy actually being far worse with Untamed than Soulbeast.  What I mean is, on Soulbeast you can copy boons back and forth, and you can merge...both are huge damage bonuses when you extend fury as much as possible.

This in itself may be my main gripe, because they either have to nerf Soulbeast for Untamed to compete or do something drastic with Untamed traitline to match Soulbeast.  Untamed literally cannot hope to ever compete with a boonbeast build, and this is not good.  

In short, I think the pet itself needs to go back to how it normally behaves, with us having ability to override what it is doing if we want.  If we chose to override what it is doing then maybe we get the new 'unleashed' skill effects in addition to what it already does.  You'd actually always get the unleashed effect on F2 use as well...so something like smokescale smokefield would remove boons by default now, which would be helpful in a number of scenarios.  

Otherwise, while the hammer skills are interesting, the rest of it just doesn't work well compared to what already exists. 

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Zyreva.1078]

2 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

You got call lightning as well, the Pet CCs if they work with the trait and the occasional racial skill for WvW and PvE (Bear form, raven form, snow leopard form, wolf form, chaarzooka, powersuit crap, technobabble. Snowleopard being the most usefull of them all for WvW)

Spirits are garbage in PvP/WvW, so are racial skills. Pet cc does not proc traits.

That being said, ranger does not lack cc in oder to proc untamed traits, however most melee cc skills are rather hard to land, kinda pushing the spec towards a ranged playstyle, which isn't really the direction they were advertising when presenting the spec.

Edited December 2, 2021 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Jalad Lantana.3027]

Gave the Untamed another go and it just does not click for me.

The changes to the hammer were positive, but it still feels like playing in wet concrete.

The only plus to the hammer is it makes using traps convenient, otherwise up close melee does not mix well with a light armor class that has to sacrifice toughness for power or condition damage.

I will pass and unless Mechanist gets nerfed badly, I will be retiring my Ranger and playing that instead.

 

Rangers are the second most played class but seem to be the dev's least favorite.

[conquistator.6549]

My feedbacks here are only for WvW large scale fight related scenario

 

I have made feedback prior to beta 4 regarding the change in the untamed in other thread and after trying out, unfortunately, all of the items mentioned there are still a problem. So here comes a bit of my ranting:

Even all the seemingly huge and numerous buff to the spec, I couldn’t think of a way to make this spec a competitive build in a scenario that the dev intended this spec to be- namely in a large scale wvw fight, sort of “GW1 bunny thumper” as has previously been referenced various times by the dev.

 

Although the changes are positive but the underlying theme that is incompatible with the intended role still poses a significant obstacle to the spec’s playability and competitiveness. This, anet must acknowledges. And if anet still envisions this upcoming ranger spec to be a wvw large scale fight type of spec, the dev must let go of this sunk-cost fallacy and start over entirely fresh, from 0. However, if anet decides this is no longer the case, then anet can just ignore my suggestion here. A clear message from anet regarding this in the near future would be greatly appreciated.

 

I do believe the results speaks for itself and indeed the untamed speaks for the effort anet dev has put into it- The untamed is nothing but a spec that merely exists only to be attached to the EoD expansion.

 

Ps, I’d love to be wrong when EoD comes out.

[fadico.9613]

The hammer skills are slow and not that good and every pet have the same skills when they are unleashed and thats so boring and does not make me care which pet i choose because they all have the same skills and when the ranger in unleashed it should change all of the wepon skills not just the hammer and the first skill change when the ranger is unleashed is not a good idea and feel like you are copying the mirage.

[FORPOLAT.5320]

devs, if you change these, untamed will be viable 'imo';

-make hammer skill (unleashed and base skills) cooldowns separate, and change damage numbers accordingly

-also f5 toggle skill may have cd again like 5 seconds to prevent using all hammer skills in 10 seconds.

-make unleashed skills as default for all weapons, it is soooo confusing and hard when I am able to use that skill, make it default and balance the numbers accordingly

-make at least 3-4 different skill set for different type of pets for unleashed skills 

and we will good to go 😅     

[Levetty.1279]

On 12/1/2021 at 12:24 AM, Levetty.1279 said:

Sometimes going into Unleashed automatically triggers the ambush, other times it doesn't. This causes problems as pressing 1 again interrupts the ambush and starts auto attacking. I've ended up cancelling my ambush attacks a lot, especially on Hammer.

I think this might be related to completing the auto attack chain btw.

[Firebird Gomer.9563]

I posted this in its own post but I thought I should add it here as well. Mods remove this one or the other post if you feel it necessary.

For 9 years it has been F1 Attack my target, F2 Pet skill, F3 Return to me and so on.

Now with the new Untamed (and Mechanist as well) those keys are now changed round. I'm not sure about anyone else and I wont speak for anyone else. But surely Anet you could have left Attack my Target as F1 and changed Pet skill to Return to me as F2 and then worked the others out around the other F keys. Again I dont want to speak for anyone else but me, tho I hope that I am not the only one thinking this.

It is quite confusing with the current set up and THEN when you change to SB or Druid or Core Ranger THE F KEYS all change again..... Please could you rearrange them so that they are set up in a standard pattern preferably F1 Attack my Target, F2 Return to me, F3 Pet Swap, F4 change Druid/SB/Untamed F5 button to F4, F5 Pet attack (other classes) and Untamed Skill 1, F6 Untamed Skill 2, F7 Untamed Skill 3. Yes I know that you can custom them in settings but the same thing happens  as soon as you change professions bam the keys are all set up wrong and you have to change them again... Hence Anet needs to standardize them between all Specs and then people can custom them from there....

Edited December 2, 2021 by Firebird Gomer.9563

[FORPOLAT.5320]

11 minutes ago, Firebird Gomer.9563 said:

I posted this in its own post but I thought I should add it here as well. Mods remove this one or the other post if you feel it necessary.

For 9 years it has been F1 Attack my target, F2 Pet skill, F3 Return to me and so on.

Now with the new Untamed (and Mechanist as well) those keys are now changed round. I'm not sure about anyone else and I wont speak for anyone else. But surely Anet you could have left Attack my Target as F1 and changed Pet skill to Return to me as F2 and then worked the others out around the other F keys. Again I dont want to speak for anyone else but me, tho I hope that I am not the only one thinking this.

It is quite confusing with the current set up and THEN when you change to SB or Druid or Core Ranger THE F KEYS all change again..... Please could you rearrange them so that they are set up in a standard pattern preferably F1 Attack my Target, F2 Return to me, F3 Pet Swap, F4 change Druid/SB/Untamed F5 button to F4, F5 Pet attack (other classes) and Untamed Skill 1, F6 Untamed Skill 2, F7 Untamed Skill 3. Yes I know that you can custom them in settings but the same thing happens  as soon as you change professions bam the keys are all set up wrong and you have to change them again... Hence Anet needs to standardize them between all Specs and then people can custom them from there....

 

please correct me if I am wrong but, you can change the key binds of those buttons, you can make F1 attack my target and F3 return etc. this is same with mechanist

[Firebird Gomer.9563]

5 minutes ago, FORPOLAT.5320 said:

 

please correct me if I am wrong but, you can change the key binds of those buttons, you can make F1 attack my target and F3 return etc. this is same with mechanist

Yes correct. And then when you change Elite Specs say from Untamed to SoulBeast you will be forced to change them again because they will be set up wrong and every time you change Elite Specs you will have to manually change them. HENCE getting Anet to standardize them across all the different ranger Specs and the Mechanic one as well so that you will not have to change them UNLESS you want to customize them after the standardization....

Edited December 2, 2021 by Firebird Gomer.9563

[Tungsten Monarch.6058]

Please remove the Pet skills, and just buff the existing Pet and Pet skills when Pet is untamed.

For Ranger Untamed just give a simple Stat buff.

You are either a Stat buffed Pet, or a Stat buffed Ranger.

This affects all modes and roles of play.

Class completed. This is not hard.

[InspectorCaracal.2970]

9 hours ago, Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582 said:

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!

imo the presence of unique mechanics as icons in your boon bar at all is just so other players can see it on you and know what abilities you might have. Anything that gives you different mechanics rather than simple stat buffs needs to make a significant change to your own GUI, not just an icon. And while a lot of it is stat buffs, if I'm going to make use of the ambush skills, I need to know if hitting F5 is going to put me in Unleashed mode, or take me out, and I need to know it quickly and easily.

The really frustrating thing is they have the GUI visual mechanic already built into the game. Throw an effect on the skill bar. They've done it for both the other Ranger elites so far, and all three ranger elites have a mode swap. Druid gets the blue glow. Soulbeast gets the green leafy glow. And then Untamed gets nothing?? I would've expect like the silvery green vine glow like they put on the character model to go around my skill bar, but we literally got nothing.

Plus, the icons themselves look basically identical. One's like a wolf face and the other's like a human face but they're the same color, they're the same size, they're facing the same way with the same shouty pose, and we always have both on the screen at the same time anyway, so they're basically useless. If the icons are supposed to be important visual cues, they need to actually look different. Doesn't matter where they are, if they're still basically the same icon.

The only substantial GUI cue we get at all is that the hammer skill icons go from green-purple to bright yellow-green. IF we're using the hammer. That's really not enough.