[PVP] Untamed: In depth PVP review.

[Padra.1678]

Hello Rangers!

 

Over the beta I spent two full days repeatedly queuing in unranked PVP with the Untamed elite specialization. This means many, many hours and many, many games. I played so much because I really care about the Ranger class and I wanted to understand the Untamed specialization and what it is trying to accomplish as well as I could before typing up my feedback.  I am going to keep this as constructive as possible but I am sure I have a couple unpopular opinions and things to say about anet they might not love. I am not of the opinion that its all doom and gloom and I do not think the spec is "trash" or "Needs to be remade." I LOVE the idea the spec was built around and I applaud the studio for coming up with something so original and interesting. Not that they don't have their work cut out for them with this one but I  think that this is a true Beta for Untamed which means that the class is not a finished product and I am fine with that. We also haven't seen any of the pets and I have no doubt the new pets will be stronger than any of the existing ones and could help a lot with how the spec plays.

 

 

Overview/My Experience

After many hours of testing I have come to the conclusion that the Untamed in its current iteration is absolutely not playable in pvp.  I have played all 9 of the elite specializations and while some of them where not great (Like the Willbinder and Catalyst) I found the Untamed to be the only spec where playing the elite spec in pvp literally feels worse then playing the core version of the class. This is 90% because of the lack of basic pet controls (the lack of bindable "attack target" and "return to me" commands.)  and 10% because the Unleashed pet skills have no impact whatsoever in the fight and the unleashed hammer simply doesn't put out enough damage. Anet you should feel a little embarrassed one of your elite specializations is preforming like this. I was initially very confused as to what the specialization was trying to accomplish. Going into it I thought it was meant to be a "Pet" spec and this turned out not to be the case. After almost a day of playing I finally figured out that the spec preforms best for me as kind of like a combo attack sort of deal. What I mean by that is I started to treat the whole F Mechanic: F1 and f2 followed by the Unleashed hammer as one long combo. Useing the pet F1 and F2 to transport the pet to my enemy so it can do its thing and then swapping the unleashed to myself to follow up with Hammer skill bar on a Knockdown then taunted target. I tryied many different amulets and stat combinations but ultimately ended up playing the spec best as berserker.

 

 

HAMMER

The hammer was far and away my favorite part of the spec. Sure there is no denying that it is a little bit undertuned but I love the way it plays. I don't really think the weapon skills need to be restructured for mobility or defense and I think and leashed version of the hammer is fine the way it is.  Here is an unpopular opinion of mine: If Anet wants to lock an elite specialization in to doing a specific thing (like being condi focused, or power focused, or being ranged. or being melee, or wielding a specific weapon) I think that is completely fine for them to do so. The elite specializations need to differentiate themselves from one another so if they are like "HEY GUYS THIS IS THE HAMMER RANGER NOW" that's how it is and if you dont like it then you can go find another of the 26 specializations to play. The flip side of that is if they do force you into a specific thing it had better feel good doing it which brings me to my major issue with hammer. I understand that Anet is very nervous about putting huge damage on a weapon that also inflicts CC and I think thats smart. The thing is that when you unleash the hammer it has no cc, no mobility and no defence the only thing is has is damage. So why then is the damage so low. why are you being so stingy about damage on a weapon that has cast times and literally has nothing going for it but damage. With full berserker I only got to about 6k attacks at the highest end. In my opinion the base damage on the hammer needs to be brought up a little bit. I would like to see maybe a 5% damage increase and ALL the weapon skills should benefit from the 20% additional damage to controlled targets. That would increase the weapon overall damage output by quite a bit while still require the player using it to know what they are doing. This is major part of the Untamed ELITE spec mechanic and when used properly it should be something to FEAR. 

 

 

UTILITY SKILLS 

Perilous Gift: Honestly I really like it. It can be used to provide a significant heal while being a double edged sword if used in a stupid way. I like that it makes me think. I wouldn't recommend a change.

 

Explodeing Spores: This was my favorite of the utility skills the only thing I dont really like about it is that the sweetspot for landing the knockdown effect is so hard to land. I would like to see a small increase to the radius of the individual spore explosions so I dont have to be standing literally directly on top of my targets when I cast it. 

 

Mutate Conditions: This one really threw me for a loop.  If you have condi on you and you use this while your unleashed you are commiting suicide. The high vulnerability stacks inflicted by this skill combined with the fact then when unleashed you take an additional 10% damage basically gives you super vulnerability and it may kill you even faster then the mass of conditions will. Please just remove the vulnerability and let us have something nice 😢 maybe it could have a slightly increased CD to compensate. I could also see makeing this skill a stunbreak because there isent one in the kit. Doing that of course should result in a longer CD. 

 

Natures binding: I only used this skill a few times and my victims just walked out of it like it was nothing so I gave up. Let me know in the comments if it should be changed and how. 

 

Forest's Fortification: Well this is like the defensive version of "strength or the pack" I thought it was pretty well designed I am not really sure if it should have such a long CD on it though. But I would also argue that the CD can be reduced and the 50% damage reduction is pretty crazy. I cant think of how or if it should be improved if you guys have any opinions let me know in the comments.

 

UNLEASHED/PET

Oh man, this is the place the entire elite spec falls apart for me. The biggest problem is the lack of basic pet controls. Its been beaten to death on this forum I know but it completely deserves and needs to be. The bottom line is that we cannot play this spec without those controls because without having them instead of the pet doing what its meant to be doing it is off god knows where suiciding itself.  I know  "1" attack button is now meant to be the new "attack target" and everything but the AI is just far to glitchy for that. Furthermore we now cannot tell our pets to attack the enemy we just downed while we go to wreck their friend. Or split our targets for whatever other reason we want to. The basic pet controls need to come back and they need to be bindable without that this elite specialization will never see play. Period. The end.

 

Beast mastery traits do not effect the unleashed pet abilities which as I understand it is because those ability's count as coming from the player character. I think thats fine but why then don't any of the unleashed ability's do any damage?

 

My other huge problem with the Unleashed specialization is the unleashed pet part of the specialization. These are frankly some of the worst skills that have ever been added to the game. This is suppose to be part of the F mechanic of the specialization they have to do something and have some sort of impact of the fight. It took me hours and hours of playing before I was even able to figure out the purpose of these skills might be. Which I think it is meant to get your pet to the target so it can then do its thing and do something that makes the foe vulnerable to your hammer unleashed skills. Lets start from the top:

 

Venomous Outburst: This skill is a 900 range teleport that does 86 damage with 1 stack of poison and I believe 5 vulnerability on an already disabled target. Besides that fact that this skill is a F mechanic skill and still does literally no damage it only inflicts 1 stack of poison. Is this meant to double function as some kind of condition skill for the pet I am honestly unsure. The only thing I can say positive about it is that it does serve a purpose in at least transporting your pet to the target which is actually helpful.  I still feel like as it is in fact and unleash skill it should do a little more then just move your pet. I don't know an appropriate way to fix this maybe your guys can help me in the comments. 

 

Rending Vines: *insert human pooping noise* This skill is so bad it doesn't even warrant pressing the button. This is where the power of the pet unleashed mechanic should be this is the part of the pet skill bar that should be "setting up the kill" for the hammer but instead of that it only rips 2 boons does 86 damage and applies a miserable slow. Everybody in pvp is always convered in boons and all of the really important boon abilities are pulsing . Removeing 2 boons from a player does absolutely nothing to them and has no impact on the fight what so ever. There are a few ways I can see fixing this skill. In my eyes it either has to do actual damage or it has to debilitate my opponent. Doing damage is self explanatory. To debilitate an enemy the first thing is it should remove more boons at least the full 3 if you guys think more let me know in the comments. Furthermore I think in addition to a longer slow effect it should also apply a cripple to the target for the same duration say both conditions for 6-8 seconds. That way a target effected by this skill will certainly not be running away from the hammer very quickly. In addition to that they might actually lose their pesky stability which will leave them open to the damage and further pet CC. 

 

Enveloping haze: Its a bubble on a pet . . . . I actually think this one is fine but it still is not great because you know it on a pet.

 

I want to include my second Unpopular opinion here as I am talking about the unleashed mechanic. I see a lot of people complaining about the visual graphics of the unleash mechanic. To be sure I don't love it either but to me its just a none issue. The reason I say that is because presumably it looks like that because it ties the class into the lore, story, continent of Cantha. Thats just the way the devs decided to make that portion of the game look and therefor unleashed looks that way also. Oh well.  I am not saying this to poop on people. For myself I am just much more concerned about the mechanics of the class then whatever creative leaps the devs took with their elite spec. It is just my opinon.  

 

TRAITS

Debilitating blows: This trait applies vunerability when you disable a foe but it doesn't apply to pet disables and when your in unleashed hammer you have no disables. Not a good trait. It really just needs to apply to pet disables.

Cleansing unleash: 1 Condi on unleash swap. Maby could make it 2. nothing special to see here. 

Blinding Outburst: This trait inflicts a blind on venomous outburst and honestly it think its fine.

 

Enhanceing impact: This trait applies stability and quickness based on unleashed state but as with the first trait in the adept line it does not apply to pet disables and when your on unleashed hammer you have no disables. This trait really needs to apply to pet disables.

Bolstering Unleash: This trait applies defensive boons on unleash swap. I dont know if it needs to be changed. If you guys have any issues or ideas with it please let me know in the comments.

Corrupting Vines: I love this trait. its amazing. I think it could become very powerful if rending vines acutally becomes something useful.

 

Fervent Force: Way to go with this one Anet. I think its a really interesting trait. I know there is currently a kind of glitchy interaction with this that allows for some very nasty CC. Please dont nerf it to hard rangers deserve to have nice things to 😢

Restorative Strikes: I dident play with this. Let me know what you guys think of it.

Ferocious Symbiosis: I really like this trait as well. It seems to give a decent damage percent increase. 

 

CONCLUSION

I had really high hopes for my ranger following the video release and needless to say I was, right along with the rest of the ranger community, disappointed when I finally got my hands on the new spec. We have been waiting almost 5 years now for this and the beta just really didn't feel great. I want to say again that this is still a beta and they still have time to fix this and making something really cool out of it. As a ranger player while I am very happy I didn't pre-order End of Dragons yet but I personally have a lot of faith in them that they can do this. I have seen so many people offering great feedback and ideas and feed back on here. I hope they at least take a look and read though some of these posts as they make adjustments to the class going forward to the 4th beta and release.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

 

 

  

 

Edited October 31, 2021 by Padra.1678