The most important thing to address concerning Untamed?

[Dadnir.5038]

10 hours ago, Wild.1705 said:

It is cool to have someone who has been around for a long time that has seen some changes that have been made. Which do you think were most/least effective? Why?

Any idea what the AI "improvements" were? This is just me being curious.

 

I think raw numerical value changes can be useful at times, but other than hitbox changes and "improved AI", it seems that ArenaNet has only ever considered number changes rather than tackling the problem from a different direction.

Which do you think were the most/least effective?

Honestly it depend on the gamemode. In general, the most effective was the increase in radius of some of the pet AA. For WvW zergling, nothing can really be said to have been effective. In PvE, the immunity/damage reduction against aoe when the pet isn't directly targeted by the caster of the aoe is the most effective thing that's been done. As for sPvP, I would say that the pathing change were the most effective one.

Any idea of what the AI improvement were?

It's mostly about pathing of the pet allowing it to take a more optimal path instead of struggling to find the best path when faced with an obstacle. It seem like nothing but for a long time I'd have rather taken a ranged pet (devourer/spider) than a melee one because of the many pathing issues ("Guard!" used to help with bypassing those issues until it's first nerf).

Different direction:

The different direction ANet have taken for the pet are basically minimalising it's impact through e-specs (first Druid and then, more thoroughly, Soulbeast). It's important to note that, in sPvP, players do not like being defeated by an "AI" driven entity, which is why the devs are a bit shy when it come to "improvement" on the pet.

[anduriell.6280]

 

11 hours ago, Wild.1705 said:

I would love to see the pet AI improve. However, I still don't think that will be enough to save it in WVW zergs, 5v5 sPVP node battles(specifically big group fights 4v4/5v5), or select PVE bosses.

I would LOVE to see the AI be updated, but I can't with confidence say that is the first thing that should be focused on. If the pet can't survive, then it's AI does not matter too much.

I don't think the pets need to have a relevant role in zergs, but the ranger should have the tools to be able to allow them to survive for long enough to be able to be swapped. In the thread i opened it wasn't my intention to make them the WvW version of the PvE immunity. 

With sharing cleanses and dodges would be enough to make more survivable. And sharing the boons with them by baseline should make them more sturdy without the need to resort to cheap tricks like "immunity while not targeted" 

1 hour ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

They firstly need to match soulbeast in terms of pet management.  Essentially, 10s max swap CD no matter if pet is alive or not, no more 60s penalty. 

In below thread i offered a very good solution to the "Downed pet" dylema, a shame the thread passed under the radar. In that thread one of the points was to reduce the feral swap to 5s, and each time the swap is carried a percentage of the current HP is transfered from the Feral to the other partner. 

It is difficult to explain so i will use an example: When the ranger gets into Feral state it will transfer a 30% of it's current HP to the pet, if the pet is downed reviving it. And when the pet goes into feral state it would transfer that 30% hp from the pet's current. 

That means  the untamed can revive the pet every 5 seconds as long as it is willing to sacrifice it's own HP. Following the same design as  shared dodges or cleanses. Thus also acomplishing a tankier desing with some caveats, and the fact the untamed can swap pets every 20-60s allows the e-spec to play tankier without resorting to damage reductions. There are more details in the thread as to round the e-spec to be more playable. 

 

[draxynnic.3719]

6 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

They firstly need to match soulbeast in terms of pet management.  Essentially, 10s max swap CD no matter if pet is alive or not, no more 60s penalty. 

There really should be some form of punishment to the pet getting killed, at least in sPvP. Given how much health pets have, if you make them able to be replaced every ten seconds, you almost might as well make them invulnerable to everything except crowd control.

 

If anything, I'd say soulbeast should have a cooldown before they can leave beastmode if the pet was in the defeated state when you meld, so you can't just pop it out again good as new right away. 

 

For WvW balance with zergs, I could see such quick pet replacement being done simply because of how quickly they die in zergfights (justify it as WvW rangers having access to a larger stable of replacements rather than calling it on the same pair of animals over and over), but I don't think it's a change that should be translated into PvE and sPvP. 

[Leonidrex.5649]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

There really should be some form of punishment to the pet getting killed, at least in sPvP. Given how much health pets have, if you make them able to be replaced every ten seconds, you almost might as well make them invulnerable to everything except crowd control.

 

If anything, I'd say soulbeast should have a cooldown before they can leave beastmode if the pet was in the defeated state when you meld, so you can't just pop it out again good as new right away. 

 

For WvW balance with zergs, I could see such quick pet replacement being done simply because of how quickly they die in zergfights (justify it as WvW rangers having access to a larger stable of replacements rather than calling it on the same pair of animals over and over), but I don't think it's a change that should be translated into PvE and sPvP. 

slb already cant pet swap, another downside is not needed.
And pet is NEVER killed by design, and always as a sub-product of aoe spam, if they want to make ranger less frustrating they need to keep pets
1 tankier
2 have more utilit ( cc, vulnerability, addidional bonuses like taking reduced damage if pet is within X or dealing increased damage if focusing same target ETC )
3 have less direct damage
As it is, 95% of the classes cant kill a pet, 5% classes kills it without even trying ( fire weaver kills pets withing ~3s every time you switch/unmerge, even soulbeast 10s cd cant keep up for example )
When you move onto teamfithts against aoe spam like holo/necro pets just flop dead.
IMO pets should be nerfed, made more survivable, get more utility and buff ranger to compensate. Same thing with untamed.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

There really should be some form of punishment to the pet getting killed, at least in sPvP. Given how much health pets have, if you make them able to be replaced every ten seconds, you almost might as well make them invulnerable to everything except crowd control.

 

If anything, I'd say soulbeast should have a cooldown before they can leave beastmode if the pet was in the defeated state when you meld, so you can't just pop it out again good as new right away. 

 

For WvW balance with zergs, I could see such quick pet replacement being done simply because of how quickly they die in zergfights (justify it as WvW rangers having access to a larger stable of replacements rather than calling it on the same pair of animals over and over), but I don't think it's a change that should be translated into PvE and sPvP. 

 

Yeah, punishment or tradeoff for me is that pets for untamed are non-stowable. 

So Soulbeast has extra benefit of being able to merge and unmerge whenever and for as long as they want, and still gets a 10s CD at the cost of pet swap.  

Untamed would be similar except they can't stow the pet--so the 10s swap still seems reasonable with the 'feature creep' they've introduced with soulbeast.  

[draxynnic.3719]

7 hours ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

slb already cant pet swap, another downside is not needed.
And pet is NEVER killed by design, and always as a sub-product of aoe spam, if they want to make ranger less frustrating they need to keep pets
1 tankier
2 have more utilit ( cc, vulnerability, addidional bonuses like taking reduced damage if pet is within X or dealing increased damage if focusing same target ETC )
3 have less direct damage
As it is, 95% of the classes cant kill a pet, 5% classes kills it without even trying ( fire weaver kills pets withing ~3s every time you switch/unmerge, even soulbeast 10s cd cant keep up for example )
When you move onto teamfithts against aoe spam like holo/necro pets just flop dead.
IMO pets should be nerfed, made more survivable, get more utility and buff ranger to compensate. Same thing with untamed.

What I'm proposing isn't a tradeoff so much as an adjustment to how merging works when the pet is defeated. Right now it's an instant res on a 10s cooldown unless the soulbeast chooses to use it differently.

 

Also, I've played ranger in teamfights and against weavers. Not going to say the pet never died, but certainly not as common or as quickly as you claim. There's rarely an incentive to attack it because it's usually faster and more effective to kill the ranger. Sometimes, though, there is.

 

I could see the 'nerf damage, buff survivability/utility' approach work, but I don't think it should be a case where a ranger is never more than ten seconds away from having their pet back even if you do kill it.

[Leonidrex.5649]

6 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

What I'm proposing isn't a tradeoff so much as an adjustment to how merging works when the pet is defeated. Right now it's an instant res on a 10s cooldown unless the soulbeast chooses to use it differently.

 

Also, I've played ranger in teamfights and against weavers. Not going to say the pet never died, but certainly not as common or as quickly as you claim. There's rarely an incentive to attack it because it's usually faster and more effective to kill the ranger. Sometimes, though, there is.

 

I could see the 'nerf damage, buff survivability/utility' approach work, but I don't think it should be a case where a ranger is never more than ten seconds away from having their pet back even if you do kill it.

Instantly unmerging while on a lower cooldown, is mechanically worse then swapping pets.
When you swap pets you gain a different fresh pet with all cooldowns ready, while soulbeast gets the same pet that has cooldowns on. So as core you can use pet damage + pet CC then swap and get the damage AND CC again, while soulbeast cant do that.
As it should be, its a tradeoff.

[draxynnic.3719]

7 hours ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

Instantly unmerging while on a lower cooldown, is mechanically worse then swapping pets.
When you swap pets you gain a different fresh pet with all cooldowns ready, while soulbeast gets the same pet that has cooldowns on. So as core you can use pet damage + pet CC then swap and get the damage AND CC again, while soulbeast cant do that.
As it should be, its a tradeoff.

Depends on the circumstances, but on the whole I'd say that refreshing cooldowns is a pretty weak benefit compared to never being more than 10s away from having a pet (when a regular ranger's swap cooldown can be from 15s to 60s depending on traits and the status of the pet), especially since the soulbeast who's stuck in beastmode for a while is still a lot better off than a regular ranger whose pet is defeated and whose swap is on cooldown.

 

Losing the pet swap is a tradeoff. Making it actually practical to kill the soulbeast's pet without it being instantly revived is just offering some counterplay. Not a lot, though, since it's still just forcing the soulbeast to rely on their signature mechanic for the length of the cooldown. Considering that many soulbeast players just remain in beastmode pretty much permanently anyway, I don't think this would exactly be crippling - it's just enforcing that there is SOME consequence to the pet dying.

[Leonidrex.5649]

6 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Depends on the circumstances, but on the whole I'd say that refreshing cooldowns is a pretty weak benefit compared to never being more than 10s away from having a pet (when a regular ranger's swap cooldown can be from 15s to 60s depending on traits and the status of the pet), especially since the soulbeast who's stuck in beastmode for a while is still a lot better off than a regular ranger whose pet is defeated and whose swap is on cooldown.

 

Losing the pet swap is a tradeoff. Making it actually practical to kill the soulbeast's pet without it being instantly revived is just offering some counterplay. Not a lot, though, since it's still just forcing the soulbeast to rely on their signature mechanic for the length of the cooldown. Considering that many soulbeast players just remain in beastmode pretty much permanently anyway, I don't think this would exactly be crippling - it's just enforcing that there is SOME consequence to the pet dying.

killing a pet is not a counter-play, its byproduct of spam.
there is 0 scenarios where it is worthwhile investment to dump ~20-30k damage into a pet to kill it.
instead you dump it into ranger and ranger dies.
I sure as hell cant devote 27k damage as power mesmer to a pet, but fire weaver does that 27k in ~2,5s while focusing ranger and pet dies in the background.

[draxynnic.3719]

3 hours ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

killing a pet is not a counter-play, its byproduct of spam.
there is 0 scenarios where it is worthwhile investment to dump ~20-30k damage into a pet to kill it.
instead you dump it into ranger and ranger dies.
I sure as hell cant devote 27k damage as power mesmer to a pet, but fire weaver does that 27k in ~2,5s while focusing ranger and pet dies in the background.

It happens sometimes in sPvP, usually as a means of countering the 'ranger sends the pet to harass someone while the ranger does something else' ploy. PvE enemies also focus the pet sometimes, and when they do the ranger gets enough benefit from not being the target themself that they don't really need the pet to be infinitely replaceable too.

 

WvW is spam in a scale large enough that ArenaNet admitted on release that the professions really weren't balanced for. I could see a split making pets a lot easier to keep active in WvW. 

 

But as a general thing, I really don't see a good reason why soulbeast - a specialisation built around being able to merge with the pet so it isn't dependent on a separate AI- controlled entity for its effectiveness - should also be better at keeping the pet out and alive than other specs. 

[Leonidrex.5649]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

It happens sometimes in sPvP, usually as a means of countering the 'ranger sends the pet to harass someone while the ranger does something else' ploy. PvE enemies also focus the pet sometimes, and when they do the ranger gets enough benefit from not being the target themself that they don't really need the pet to be infinitely replaceable too.

 

WvW is spam in a scale large enough that ArenaNet admitted on release that the professions really weren't balanced for. I could see a split making pets a lot easier to keep active in WvW. 

 

But as a general thing, I really don't see a good reason why soulbeast - a specialisation built around being able to merge with the pet so it isn't dependent on a separate AI- controlled entity for its effectiveness - should also be better at keeping the pet out and alive than other specs. 

I see a good reason, soulbeast has access to 1 pet, and sometimes even 0 as while merged pet doesnt exist.
This is why you unmerge you need your pet to be always alive, otherwise you never even have a pet.
SLB is the most active ranger spec, no need to kick it in the nut, just enjoy it for what it is.