Untamed Feedback Thread

[Kain Francois.4328]

Ambush skills are neat, but I honestly cannot tell when they are up, or what the cooldown even is.

I even think cooldowns are detrimental to the whole point of Ambushes as a skill category.

Perhaps consider a new way to activate them? Such as after we use a CC, or maybe an Unleashed Pet skill?

[Beddo.1907]

11 hours 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

By that I meant 1 cc (aside from greatsword 4 which needs you to take damage) per weapon and not that much outside of weapons.

Don't forget that while taking CC to use the trait you should also consider what do you want to refresh faster and does it give enough commitment to result value.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

47 minutes ago, Beddo.1907 said:

By that I meant 1 cc (aside from greatsword 4 which needs you to take damage) per weapon and not that much outside of weapons.

Don't forget that while taking CC to use the trait you should also consider what do you want to refresh faster and does it give enough commitment to result value.

 

This is a good point too, because after reading through all of these replies and thinking on it--Untamed kind of seems like it would just fit better under one of the current specs.

 

Druid for instance has insane amounts of CC (lunar impact, glyphs, etc. etc.) that can benefit from these traits, and also is about as 'frontline' as we get with the healing synergies, so could utilize hammer.  

 

You could also make builds for Soulbeast that have decent CC with merged pet skills, and if you really wanted the 'untamed experience' then just add hammer use for core as well.  

[Coldmail.9672]

As I was a huge fan of the original thumper this is what I would like to see for the elite spec.

***
When target is not disabled normal pet skills like you would see them now on pets.

F1 - normal f1 pet skill
F2 - normal f2 pet skill
F3 - normal f3 pet skill

When target is disabled the pet skills become:

F1dis - teleport to target + damage and non-damaging conditions
F2dis - teleport to target + damaging conditions
F3dis - teleport to target + defensive boons, barrier for both

So you would have to make a choice and it would have a significant impact.

***

Hammer skills

1 - chain 1) damage 2) damage + cripple, vuln 3) damage + if target was moving it is dazed
3 - slam ground - blind + imob target
2 - block - if block succesfull attacker is stunned
4 - spin knockback
5 - leap forward and knockdown - might, fury

***

For traits:

-Gain access to cantrips, hammer and unleashed form.
Unleashed effect: You and your pet attack and move % faster for some duration.
Extra time is added each time you and your pet strike targets.
Can be turned off

Gain damaged reduction when you are close to your target
Using unleashed gives offensive boons
Reduced recharge on cantrips and cantrips grant barrier

-You and your pet gain more vitality and power

Pet Fdis skills become unblockable and remove boons from target
Unleached recharges faster
A percentage of damage dealt to you is transfered to your pet. This transfered damage is reduced while unleashed.

-You and your pet do extra damage on disabled targets

Weapon skills gain recharge reduction when you disable targets
Grant stability and break stun when using unleashed
A portion of damage dealt on disabled targets heals you and your pet

****

Cantrips:

heal) heal yourself and your pet and add duration to unleashed
1) teleport to your target and daze them
2) remove some conditions
3) inflict some conditions
4) break stun, leap and evade forward
elite) using this will give unleashed even more attack speed and movement speed for some duration or use unleashed when it is on recharge

 

 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2021 by Coldmail.9672

[Parktou.4263]

Ugly Green Bubbles are Ugly Green Bubbles...

[Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582]

5 hours ago, Inventrix.3158 said:

...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...

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.

[Wielder Of Magic.3950]

Untamed feedback, round 2...

 

Reducing Unleash change from 10s to 1s is GREAT. 

That at least invites us to play with the buff more often.

 

Scrapping the penalty on Vow of the Untamed is also GREAT.

This was sorely needed. It is still not enough, but at least this is a step in the right direction.

 

Return of pet controls is GREAT. 

There was no reason for this to be gone in the first place.

 

Pet Unleash changes still ideally need different skills per pet family, need to become beast skills for trait purposes, or both. 

Entice us using different pets with different unleashed skills.

 

Ambush mechanic is a GOOD STEP, but ideally I would like to see more than 1 skill change on anything not hammer.
Ideally all weapon skills change (just like hammer), or at least 3. Perhaps it is greedy to ask, I don’t know. Please, give the hammer treatment to the other weapons as well. Elementalist gets 20+ skills with each new spec, give ranger the same treatment, just this one time!

 

Ambush cooldown needs to go down.
15s is a pain.

Ambush shared cooldown needs to go.
It destroys the mechanic.

 

Ambush needs a better visual indicator for when it is ready.
Allow green leaves to swirl over your UI or something, not just a tiny buff icon thats easy to miss.

Possibly Ambush attacks make the pet do a unique attack as well
(good excuse to fit more iconic GW1 pet attack in there like Bestial Mauling).

 

Ambush needs to be able to get triggered in other ways than just the Unleashed buff.

Mesmer has more than one way to get access to Mirage Cloak for its ambushes, why not the Untamed?
 

 

Switching between hammer leashed/unleashed skills gets better with 1s recharge on Unleash, but it is not the most elegant solution.
Unleashed variant imo still needs cc, both versions of the weapon need seperate recharges.

 

Play even harder in the ‘buff ping-pong’ play with the Unleash buff, not just for ambush skills, do more.
More stuff that triggers on getting/passing it. Damage bonuses, invulnerability, unique buffs, etc. 

 

Changes to cantrips are GOOD but not enough.
You want this to fulfill a bruiser role (not unlike Spellbreaker) but are not giving it the supportive tools most bruisers typically need to perform this role. Cantrips doing stuff for allies baseline and the trait that applies barrier upon cantrip usage also giving barrier to allies should be a start, and that might not be enough, with some of the WvW meta moving away from barriers as it is. 
Elite cantrip should pulse boons, not apply it with one big stack or boon corrupt will kill it. Still no damage and cc (for trait purposes) on the cage cantrip?  and the mutate conditions one still doesnt break stun or do cool stuff?

 

Restorative Strikes still doesnt affect the pet. 

It should.

 

Unleash should give damage or stat bonuses to the pet as well, give us more reason to give the buff to our pet other than to quickly ping-pong it back to ourself so we can use an ambush attack or maybe an F attack if we feel generous.

We now have somewhat of a reason to put the buff on ourselves, but still no actual reason to put it on our pet.

Non-unleashed pet attacks should be a different skill ID so the pet can use these attacks themselves.
There is no reason that I for example have to smash my F1 every three seconds because my pet forgot how to use bite on its own. Make the pet use them automatically or allow us to set these pet attacks to be automatically used.
 

CC trait should also trigger on CC applied by the pet.

Says it all.

 

Some traits still need help.
Stuff like Debilitating Blows or Enhancing Impact are still worthless crap. Can something here not make us dish out AoE damage + dmg bonus whenever we disable stuff or something?

 

Damage is still crap.
Damage for both power and condi is so bad the people over at SnowCrows don't even want to bother putting out an official benchmark for it. That's how bad it is.

 

 

Edited December 3, 2021 by Wielder Of Magic.3950

[Rimour.9260]

Untamed | Weapon: Hammer (main hand)  | Skills: Cantrips | Playstyle: Pet Master or Tank

After its first beta, many players complained about this Elite Specialization but I saw its potential. The Untamed was designed to give Rangers a Tank playstyle to absorb damage and CC nearby foes. However, the greatest strength of this Elite Specialization that many overlook is that players have access and can control  all their pet's abilities. Combined with the 3 new abilities from the Untamed Elite Specialization, this means Rangers can use 6 pet abilities, 9 if you count the second pet. 

For my gameplay experience I made two builds with the Untamed, a Tank build and a Range DPS build. With the tank build I used Marauders gear with Greatsword and Cantrips skills. I didn't use the Hammer because it had its own unique mechanic that didn't mesh well, since it felt like elementalist attunement swapping, which can be daunting for some players. This build worked well as I was able deal decent amount of damage to foes and using the new Elite skill mitigate damage from foes.

The second build, the Range DPS build I used same gear with Longbow and Command skills. I sent my pet out to attack while I supported with longbow. This build was effective but required a higher skill cap that will come with practice and use. My recommendation for players is to not focus on the hammer aspect too much, there are other parts of the Elite Specialization that is good. To Anet developers / designers I recommend changing or buffing the unleash pet skills and traits to give pet more survivability, maybe a 30sec passive stun break or Vitality. 

Overall: 3 / 5

[HotDelirium.7984]

A few things- I do like the direction its heading in.

-I'd consider shortbow ambush skill not being ground targeted. The window is so short (2 sec) even with a dedicated key for weapon skill 1.

-Since the green effect fades from us I think it should be even more intense on the animal (our fashion is more important 😉) but less green vapors and more of that primordial vein texture.

-the utility spores all hitting the same target is seems next to impossible unless we back up some but the skill goes off so fast it might never hit regular sized mobs.

-The vine cantrip should not be a prison skill since many traits synergize with cripple or immobilize ( and for balance can be cleansed) so it should do one, or both per circumstance.

-Consider making the triangle for resistance smaller, its good to know we have it up but it seems a bit outdated as a signaler.

-The pet skills doing enhanced effects per disabled enemy might need to be reevaluated. The window is just so short. That might be fine for huge metas and zergs but solo pve is less lenient. Maybe the effects can be staggered, max effect if stun/dazed/KO etc, lesser effect if crippled/immobilized, base effect if neither is present.

Edited December 3, 2021 by HotDelirium.7984

[HotDelirium.7984]

6 hours ago, Kain Francois.4328 said:

Ambush skills are neat, but I honestly cannot tell when they are up, or what the cooldown even is.

I even think cooldowns are detrimental to the whole point of Ambushes as a skill category.

Perhaps consider a new way to activate them? Such as after we use a CC, or maybe an Unleashed Pet skill?

We should def have a trade off since mirage has many ways to get an ambush skill- it should have that 2 sec timer, since we only have 1 way and with a cooldown either the timer should be longer or ambush skills should stay until we use it.

[Kyniel.4706]

Overall seems a bit better than before. Love the idea of the ambush skills, but sometimes it seems to miss the window even if I'm mashing 1. (Wonder if this is because unleashing doesn't cancel the existing animation?) Not sure why this is, but it is quite frustrating.

Still feels like the CD reduction on disable trait is so much better than the alternatives, perhaps the others need a buff?

Definitely having fun and moving in the right direction.

[Substance E.4852]

After more playtime, I can confidently say that ambush skills need to be moved off of Skill 1 and onto either another attack skill or a special action key

They seem to have a problem where auto chains will cause the skill to refresh and prevent you from activating the ambush skill. This even happens with non-chained auto skills like the longbow's auto

As an opening skill for a fight, the mechanic works as intended but will be a headache to use in long duration fights such as the new EoD strikes

Moving the ambush skill to skill 2 would prevent this from happening and most ambush skills seem similar to their respective weapon's 2 skill anyway, making them feel like a more powerful version of what we already have (with the exception of the bows maybe) providing a more familiar play style

 

[Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582]

22 minutes ago, Substance E.4852 said:

After more playtime, I can confidently say that ambush skills need to be moved off of Skill 1 and onto either another attack skill or a special action key

They seem to have a problem where auto chains will cause the skill to refresh and prevent you from activating the ambush skill. This even happens with non-chained auto skills like the longbow's auto

As an opening skill for a fight, the mechanic works as intended but will be a headache to use in long duration fights such as the new EoD strikes

Moving the ambush skill to skill 2 would prevent this from happening and most ambush skills seem similar to their respective weapon's 2 skill anyway, making them feel like a more powerful version of what we already have (with the exception of the bows maybe) providing a more familiar play style

 

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.

Edited December 3, 2021 by Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582

[DemonSeed.3528]

Yeah the icon definitely threw me off in the beginning - it's like, am I  in unleashed or do i f5 to go unleashed to go with what the icon is showing. In the end since they changed the CD on unleashed I just toggle and see where the green swirl is, or just refer to my pet skills instead of that icon above endurance. Needs a more distinctive icon between the two, and perhaps color or shade difference. The unleashed CD change really made a difference for me. I'm using untamed more just from that change alone. I would definitely appreciate it if normal hammer and unleashed hammer CDs were separated (not like vindicator flip skills, just seperate CD between two) so one is available when you toggle. Make unleashed hammer more distinct when active like guardian virtue (not exactly same, just pop out more so you can see it in your peripheral vision).

 

Ps - in wvw I have to build really kittenous just to get a hit on ambush, not liking it for me or my enemy lol

Edited December 3, 2021 by DemonSeed.3528

[StormCleric.2843]

I don't know why but I'm kind of enjoying Untamed. There are some things with the pet's unleashed skills like how they are all the same that bother me but I actually find it kind of fun.

[Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582]

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.

Edited December 3, 2021 by Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582

[Shagie.7612]

I think at this point, changing hammer and making ambushes the bigger focus is a solid move. The ambushes feel fine, but hammer still swapping all the other skills is kinda eh. You badly need both effects in order to make it a competitive feeling weapon, but you have to choose. Tradeoffs and hard choices like that aren't inherently bad, but when it's the only weapon that has it, and already feels weaker than say, GS and axe/dagger, it's hard to justify using the weapon.

There's a discussion to be had there about how crazy strong GS is as a standalone weapon and how you'll never replace it, but that'd require some pretty large reworks on every weapon and that's not really realistic.

The goal of giving ranger a bruiser spec is fine, and Untamed does an okay job of that. But I think also creates its own problem in how ranger's kiting capabilities are what let you live. You throw any sort of beefiness on untamed (which is necessary to make it a bruiser) and then now the spec becomes more or less unkillable when you properly kite.

I don't really know the solution to that, and I don't know that in the end it will be problem, but playing a regular core type build with Untamed swapped in, I feel pretty much immortal and haven't lost much pressure if any.

Pet skills are still kinda hit or miss when it comes to manual activation. They still need an overhaul in that regard. Again, smokescale knock being controllable is godlike, cat bite not so much (and certain ones are already useless in all game modes even with perfect micro, so they just get worse in that regard).

I do want to say that I'm having fun with the unleash swapping for pet stuff, since it can be more or less on demand for which skill you want, and I like the hammer, I like the theme and will probably end up playing it a bunch even if it's not very good, I'm just unsure on the ability for this spec to hit its intended goals in the end.

Edited December 3, 2021 by Shagie.7612

[Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582]

1 hour ago, Shagie.7612 said:

...The goal of giving ranger a bruiser spec is fine, and Untamed does an okay job of that. But I think also creates its own problem in how ranger's kiting capabilities are what let you live. You throw any sort of beefiness on untamed (which is necessary to make it a bruiser) and then now the spec becomes more or less unkillable when you properly kite.

I don't really know the solution to that, and I don't know that in the end it will be problem, but playing a regular core type build with Untamed swapped in, I feel pretty much immortal and haven't lost much pressure if any...

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

[Gorem.8104]

Ok so, has anyone figured out Untamed's purpose for existing? Like what is it best at and designed for? 

[Lazze.9870]

On 11/28/2021 at 12:25 AM, Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582 said:

It should have been if you bring the Beastmastery traitline, your pet comes, and only then. The mechanic would have been better as Preparations or Evasion, or something they didn't decide to give to Thief.

 

In retrospect, beastmastery could have been an elite spec on its own which came with pets, with core ranger having nothing to do with them other than thematically through weapons to broaden the "nature" theme... Pretty much what Engie got. More focused with fewer pet options, but with some customization to please the roleplayers.

I wouldn't play it, but you'd cover the pet AI archtype and make much better room for other elite specs to shine without having to worrying about wth they're gonna do with the pet and all the skills and traits that are tied to it. A more straightforward set of F skills, perhaps Preperations like you said, would have been a much easier platform to build elite specs on.

Edited December 12, 2021 by Lazze.9870

[Nabbis.8095]

Hello, I am a Ranger main and a old Gw1 veteran really disappointed in the untamed as it is now.

In my humble opinion the spec has potential, but I would much rather see the untamed as a primordial unstoppable force..

The Unleash Mode should work mechanically much like a holo/shroud works on other classes.

Give the untamed a timed unleash mode where the Ranger and Pet both get Movement/Damage bonus and a different set of skills (similar how the current hammer changes skills now) and then make the normal state a defensive brawler waiting for the right moment to go RAWR.

This would give identity to both modes and solidify a gameplay loop.

Traits could modfiy how long you can go RAWR  and which type of damage you would do in the RAWR mode.

Cantrips could be very similar to what they currently offer boons and bit of mobility.

There should also be a stronger focus on making the pet more usefull during the Unleash modes timed loop.

I also feel strongly that all Pet families. (Deadly, Ferocious, Stout and Versatile Should come with their own behaviours/skills in the Unleash mode.).

There are so many other ideas, but even a single one of these could make the untamed feel better, besides having a hammer it has very little to do with the original games Bunnythumper flavor of the month build. and even the idea of a Primal Beast  (wolf) besdies the ranger, both oozing of bloodlust ready to smash and smush your enemies in battle isn't really present in the spec at all.

 

I truly hope untamed will have massive changes either similar to what i am hoping for or what others have said here and elsewhere..

Out of all of the specs the untamed feels the least fleshed out and unready for february.

Ranger has been historically in dark places during the games life. and I hope Untamed doesn't bring the Ranger back to those Dark times.

#Stilllovethehammer

 

These are my 2cents after playing with the spec in these two very short beta periods we have had.

Ty for reading and give us a spec worthy of the RAWR The Ranger deserves \o/

Edited December 3, 2021 by Nabbis.8095

[Turial.1293]

On 11/30/2021 at 9:38 PM, Aleksander Suburb.4287 said:

My first impressions

++ Fast switching between the unleashed states feels so much better! Now I have more control in which state I want to be.

- we need a visual effect for unleashed pet/unleashed ranger mode. And no stupid stink cloud. Just a green frame around all skills in unleashed ranger or something.

-- Pet control is really bad. Use the standard keys for attack and return. You can use additionally keys for the other pet skills that nobody uses. In unleashed mode the F1 should be the teleport + attack my target. F3 should be the return + teleport to ranger + projectile shield. So there you don't need additional skills.

-- The hammer (especially the unleashed version) feels very uninspired, clunky and a bit disapointing. Sometimes I think it is better to remove the unleash skills of the hammer, because I will use hammer for CC and it is too complicate to remember which skill on which key in which unleash state. In addition the unleashed hammer is only strong if there is another player disabling everyone.

- cantrips just feels disappointing.

 

But its complexity just feels like "I don't know what I do, but pushing all keys seems to help". => Less complexity and more precision

I like a lot of the points this guy says.

The untamed definitely improved but maybe not enough. We absolutely need a stronger visual effect for this unleashed mode and a nice looking one. Turn the health bar green?

I hate that my regular attack/return keys are now the new keys... either switch them to be the old keys and new skills on the new F6/7 or as suggested merge both of the skills as one to remove the clunkiness.

The hammer just doesn't feel like it packs a punch. when I attack with a foe it should sound like I'm hitting someone with a sock full of quarters, not just a wet sock. Audio/visual effect just doesn't have the OOMPH of a hammer. Look at the Daredevil, skill 5 and their dodge animation have that OOMPH. With untamed... skill 5 is sort of there but still only feels about 70% of what it should sound like, skill 3 for instance feels about 20% of where it should be and skill 4 really does have a weird animation like it is cut short. Casting time is fine but it just looks weird. Skill 1 and 2 feel meh also.

The utility skills don't really stand out to me; exploding spores is easy to see and looks great though too slow to be used as CC, it looks like you forgot to add an animation to mutate conditions and unnatural traversal (joking, it's there but it's terrible) but stun break is nice and fast as it should be, unnatural traversal has the same problem (blink and you miss it).

As a bunny thumper I expect to see a bit more CC than what we have here, you could make the regular skills be all CC and the untamed skills be all damage, far less complicated than trying to figure out which of the skills give me which random boon, terrible idea too btw. I am not going to memorise these and I certainly am not going to use or rely on the ambush skills. They just don't make sense. Why are we renting our skills and boons when they are available for free to other classes?

The untamed should be feared by others when it enters combat, right now I have don't have a reason to play this class. Druid is your healing class, soulbeast is your damage, untamed should be your CC but it lacks in most departments and does not stand out visually or mechanically. Why would I choose this over my other defined and tested classes? Why should I play the untamed, you guys have to create that desire for us.

 

This is supposed to be THE BUNNY THUMPER and I just don't feel that mobility and I don't feel that OOMPH.

Edited December 3, 2021 by Turial.1293

[Caid.4932]

On 12/1/2021 at 2:18 PM, Khenzy.9348 said:

I'll just go straight to the point.

My suggestions:

 

-Hammer

Completely merge the hammer skills (with some heavy CC skills doing less damage). Even with a 1 second CD on Unleash the hammer 'intended' combos just don't flow well at all. The unleash mechanic now has a purpose with the new Ambush skills anyways. 

Give hammer skills 2 to 5 the Cantrip treatment. Now that hammer skills (from normal to unleashed) are merged, if you're unleashed, your skills give offensive boons if they land, if your pet is unleashed instead, your hammer skills provide defensive boons if they land.

^Very simple to implement. They both round up the hammer as a now decent weapon with its own little unique interaction with the Unleashed mechanic while not having to juggle between two types of skills within the same weapon that also share CDs anymore, which also makes it feel terrible to play.

 

-Unleashed mechanic

Two suggestions, one or the other (not both at the same time):

Added functionality to F2 Rending Vines (Unleashed pet F2). In addition to its current effects, now when you cast Rending Vines, the pet teleports back to you healing 30 or 50% of its HP, if the pet was dead it's revived instead and the CD of this skill is doubled. If this skill lands, the CD of Venomous Outburst (Unleashed pet F1) is reduced by 50%. 

Or

A chain skill to Venomous Outburst (Unleashed pet F1). When you cast Venomous Outburst, you unlock Hasty Retreat (or whatever) for 3 seconds. Your pet teleports back you and is healed for 30 or 50% of its HP, if the pet was dead it's revived instead and the CD of this skill is doubled.

This fixes two key things:

-Pet survivability

-Ranged pets now feel much better as they can regain their distance if you reposition far from your target.

Very few things feel worse than playing with a ranged pet to send it into an enemy's face. This massively undervalues a ranged pet's utility. Pet survivability in group play is also still a problem. This attempts to fix that in ways that are very simple and easy to implement.

 

-Visual ques (for when you're Unleashed and with Ambush skills)

When your character is Unleashed, your entire skill bar (or weapon skills) now has a very visual greenish cloudy effect (but not too visually distracting) to better indicate when you're Unleashed. The effect would be very similar to Virtue of Justice when it procs. It's very easy to lose track of when you're unleased or not unless you look at the tiny little pet skills, it becomes hard in the heat of battle, it should be much easier to identify visually. Having that green cloudy effect on the Unleashed pet would be nice too.

Ambush skills need more visual (or even sound) cues to know when they are ready. Implement a pop up effect with or without sound to know exactly when an ambush skill is ready. Or just let the tiny little icon on the right stay there forever and show its CD when an Ambush skill is used. Or just do both!

 

-General suggestion

When your pet dies, it immediately teleports back to the ranger. All ranger specs can now resurrect their own pets, the ranger kneels for 2 or 3 seconds to fully res their pet. Only the ranger can res their own pet. This should have been implemented a long time ago, no further explanation needed (I'm going to make a separate thread over this one soon).

 

-Things to fix

Ambush skills get interrupted by other attacks (specially autoattacks) all the time making them almost unusable. Please fix this.

^I'll update with new bugs and issues as I encounter them.

A lot of great suggestions here.

[Khenzy.9348]

2 hours ago, Caid.4932 said:

A lot of great suggestions here.

Thanks, but as I've been playing Untamed more and more, juggling between Unleashed back and forth having to track down Ambush skill CDs, Unleashed pet CDs and normal pet CDs felt very, very messy. This playstyle is somewhat okish on scripted PvE content, but it completely falls apart in the chaotic nature of WvW and sPvP where you have to be either proactive or reactive.

 

If the terrible skill duality of hammer is gone (skills merged as I suggested)...  I suggest something that also complements perfectly with what I already suggested above that would massively improve the feel and flow of the spec (please read until the end):

 

-Put back 10s CD on the Unleash mechanic.

-Hammer skills (unleashed and normal) merged with some balance tweaks, of course.

-Hammer skills 2 to 5 give offensive boons when unleashed and defensive boons when not unleashed.

-Unleased pet skills (F1, F2 and F3) now act similar to Ambush skills. When the pet is unleased they gain the current Unleashed skills, but only temporarily. Like the normal weapon skill 1 Ambush skills. After a few seconds (3 to 5?) you regain control of the normal pet skills. The 1s CD of the Unleashed mechanic is no longer needed.

-With a 10s CD on Unleash you can now perfectly control the proc of weapon Ambush skills and pet Ambush skills without having to track internal CDs. Massively improving the flow of the spec. You can now also perfectly align all the traits that have 10s CD on their effects without having to track their internal CDs as well either mentally or through the UI, they will always proc now whenever you use Unleash.

-Again, now with Unleashed with a 10s CD, you can now effectively put a trade off to the spec. I would reimplement the ranger recieving more damage while Unleashed so you have a 10s window to punish the Unleashed ranger.

 

See? Easy, simple to implement, effective, vastly more cohesive and fun.

 

EDIT: 

-Now that Unleash has 10s CD, to avoid PvE people from camping Unleash on the ranger and never using the Unleash pet skills. Now Ferocious Symbiosis trait has an additional effect: Now the outgoing damage adjustment (+15% damage) from the trait Vow of the Untamed lingers for 5 seconds when you Unleash your pet but you no longer gain the benefit of incoming damage adjustment (-10% damage recieved).

-If the increased damage recieved is reimplemented, this effect would also linger for 5 seconds making it a riskier but a more damage focused trait.

Edited December 3, 2021 by Khenzy.9348

[enkeny.6937]

Hi!

There is many thing need to be improved, but I like changes. It is fun to play the untamed now. Next step is to make it useful in raids too. In fraktal, with „We bleed fire” or „No pain no gain”/”Vengeance” untamed can really shine!
Ambush skills are great, but long cooldown, bugs and interrups make it hard to utilized.
It's a shame that the Mechanist is more a pet class than the dedicated class...but it is core ranger problem
I only try untamed at PvE. This is my opinion and list of what I would change.
I use a priority system where P1 is my idea on the spot, P2 is low, P3 is medium, P4 is high priority and P5 is bug.

Traits

• P3 Two-Handed Training as a hammer trait too. (20% cooldown reduction)

• P4 Unleashed Power: lower the cd to 5 sec

• P3 Nature's Shield: add: recharge reduction: 20% for cantrips

• P3 Vow of the Untamed: Give the other bonus to the pet (if the pet is unleashed, it do 15% more damage...)

Cantrips

• P2 Perilous Gift: If you are almost dead, it is good, 50% health is huge. But you can never heal yourself to 100%. This skill also don't use healing power.
  P1 I think a minimal heal with healing power scaling would be nice (2000+healing power or half of your missing health, whichever the highest)
  P1 resurrect the pet with half health if it is down.

• P2 Unnatural Traversal: It is „Teleport toward your target” not „Teleport to your target”
  The cooldown should be 20 sec any time, not just when you hit someone. (it is not ground targeted, and it is not like ride the lightning to travel without target.) or let it jump forward without target.
  P1 Teleport the pet too

• P2 Nature's Binding: can we get an underwater version with immobilized instead of cage?

• P4 Exploding Spores: Full effect radius is puny. About radius:1. Its overall radius is 240 like traps. A Frost Trap can do better work.
  P1 Anyone who is hit by at least 1 spore dazed for 1/2 sec. Stun for 2 sec if all the spores hit instead. For damage it is still hard.
  P2 ground target, let us throw the seeds! If we can't stand in the hit box it is hopeless to use its full effect.

Hammer

• P4 Still no pet skill. 5 Sec fury or pet's next attack remove 2 boons on skill #3 maybe...

• P3 No need for 2 set of skills. Ambush skills do it and hammer can be more useful if you don't need to switch for 1 or 2 skills just to seitch back immedietly.
  Skills:
  #2 Unleashed Wild Swing
  #3 Overbearing Smash with the unleashed version damage, and the pet next attack removes 2 boon
  #4 Unleashed Savage Shock Wave
  #5 Thump with the unleashed version damage.

Unleash

• P2 the green smoke around the pet looks like the pet is stinking.

• P2 Some animation, like guardian's flame around the skill bar for unleashed state.

• P4 Can't track ambush cooldown!
  P1 Make a frame on #1 slot, like ammo skills's green frame

• P4 Cooldown soud be 5 sec.
  (Mirage just need to press dodge, thief has a 3-4 revealed.as cd, can do 4-5 times more ambush. We have 15 sec cd and I don't see why?! )

 

Ambush skills

• P5 (bug) Savage Slash (greatsword) goes cd with Maul

• P5 (bug) Sometimes the auto attack chain overwrite the ambush skill.

• P4 Relentless Whirl (hammer),Vicious Pike(Spear) easily interruptible and sometimes it start automatically, sometimes don't
  P1 possible solution 1 sec lock (not cooldown, because quick draw) for #1 slot so don't interrupt instantly.

• P2 Multishot (longbow), Deft Strike (sword) , Sundering Volley (axe): Sometimes I don't know it it is activated or interrupted. Only if there is an effect, like lowering cd occur.

• P2 Toxic Shot (shortbow): ground targeting is a bit unusual, feels strange. It stop the continuous shots. Let it shoot centered at the target.

• P2 Sundering Volley(axe) missing combo finisher, projectile(20%) or whirl

• P2 Jagged Fan (harpoon gun): 1sec casting time makes it a bit unfluid, but it is at least, noticable'

pet control

• P3 Same button with different hot-keys. I make a lot of miss click because it.

 

 

Edited December 6, 2021 by enkeny.6937
typo