The Untamed

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

I'll be brief and concise here: THE UNTAMED is ranger cosplaying as elementalist - weaver, to be exact. Only,
- the flow is non-existent
- looks cool, does little
- AI-reliant
- more complicated for the sake of being complicated.

If only someone at the dev table asked, "wait, does this actually work in practice?" after the "looks good on paper" -phase.

Edited March 10, 2022 by NorthernRedStar.3054

[Abyssisis.3971]

The thing is, it doesn’t even look good on paper…. Yet they implemented it anyway.

[Mell.4873]

After the Soulbeast it is a bit of a let down since essentially its a expansion to core. The pet is stronger, we have another melee etc.

I will say if you push Untamed to the limit it does create a very organic core class. It really wants you to use both weapons (one melee, one ranged) and both pets. It almost forces you to get the most out of ranger which is great.

Soulbeast really just made the class simpler with the removal of the pet which can produce more dps with a much tighter rotation and failure in that rotation means your damage drops of a cliff hard.

[Shiyo.3578]

Really wanted a melee hammer bruiser ranger. Instead I got a meme 1 shot montage making spec. Gee, thanks.

[anduriell.6280]

And the honeymoon phase is fading... 

[Dadnir.5038]

On 3/9/2022 at 9:07 PM, Abyssisis.3971 said:

The thing is, it doesn’t even look good on paper…. Yet they implemented it anyway.

What paper? It's not good for nature to use paper and since ranger have close ties with the "nature" thematic it's obvious they didn't use paper! Maybe they should have...

Joke aside, the spec wasn't even half complete at Beta3, from my point of view the Untamed whole design was: "Let's give the pets more skills for this e-spec". The "unleash" thing was just added because it seem a convenient way to give the ranger access to those new pet skills. As for the ambush skills they were added in a rush after beta3.

They seldom look back when they introduce something in the game, if it doesn't work they don't question whether the design fit the game or not, they simply push "numbers" and ressources toward making the design work. The good news is that fine tuning the Untamed design will most likely mean "buffs" at this point.

[Arheundel.6451]

31 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

What paper? It's not good for nature to use paper and since ranger have close ties with the "nature" thematic it's obvious they didn't use paper! Maybe they should have...

Joke aside, the spec wasn't even half complete at Beta3, from my point of view the Untamed whole design was: "Let's give the pets more skills for this e-spec". The "unleash" thing was just added because it seem a convenient way to give the ranger access to those new pet skills. As for the ambush skills they were added in a rush after beta3.

They seldom look back when they introduce something in the game, if it doesn't work they don't question whether the design fit the game or not, they simply push "numbers" and ressources toward making the design work. The good news is that fine tuning the Untamed design will most likely mean "buffs" at this point.

...Yeah...10 or so of them spend 3/4 of office time discussing how to make OP/broken then next necro spec....the first elite to be released followed by vindicator...we can see where their priorities are

Edited March 15, 2022 by Arheundel.6451

[Arheundel.6451]

57 minutes ago, anduriell.6280 said:

And the honeymoon phase is fading... 

Not really...untamed is still a more robust duellist than sb against boonheavy specs, better suited than sb in teamfights. It does offer less mobility than sb as expected but the life steal ambush makes it more competitive when facing boontanks in wvw. I have 1v1 several boonbeasts and they either end up stalling, run or lose, this because sb cannot spam boons like some other specs and thus an untamed ironically fare better against boonbeast itself. My winrate against boonbot cele renegade has skyrocketed , same story with cele pewpew scrappers, that lifesteal simply ignores their huge armor and before long they're on the backfoot...it helps that many of them forgot or never learnt how to dodge...being used to facetank dmg for years.

Hammer may be unviable..the new pets are utter rubbish, on top of being bugged...but untamed remains one of the best builds I ever played on ranger. That look on the face of those cele mofos builds after tasting the cold hard ground after so long.......it is worth every pound spent to buy this expansion

[Salad.7029]

Concerning PvE

it's a shame really, i've now been a ranger main for a good long while and was utterly EXITED when i hear we are getting a hammer for the new "elite" spec.
To be fair, in my opinion the move set of the hammer, and the flow of the abilities are awesome and really float my boat.
The one thing that keeps punching holes in said boat is that the damage numbers on that hammer are so utterly abysmal that even with trying to find new builds new combos new rotas i do just a tad bit DPS above a healer.
Another problem i see with untamed, especially for "harder" content is that is most probably the most selfish thing i have ever seen in this game, this spec provides nothing to a group. I'm still loving the spec for how it feels and how it moves and shines, yet the performance is sadly really bad.

I hope we can at least get a good numbers tweak on untamed because being a DPS that has lackluster damage and literally shares not a single boon with your party kinda excludes this spec 100% from every "endgame relevant" content in the game.

Seems to be dope in WvW though big yes :3

~Salad

Edited March 15, 2022 by Salad.7029
did not declare my statement is only concerning pve

[Arheundel.6451]

48 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

What paper? It's not good for nature to use paper and since ranger have close ties with the "nature" thematic it's obvious they didn't use paper! Maybe they should have...

Joke aside, the spec wasn't even half complete at Beta3, from my point of view the Untamed whole design was: "Let's give the pets more skills for this e-spec". The "unleash" thing was just added because it seem a convenient way to give the ranger access to those new pet skills. As for the ambush skills they were added in a rush after beta3.

They seldom look back when they introduce something in the game, if it doesn't work they don't question whether the design fit the game or not, they simply push "numbers" and ressources toward making the design work. The good news is that fine tuning the Untamed design will most likely mean "buffs" at this point.

Furthermore...let's no kid ourselves...without ambush skills, pet unleashed state, the full condi removal and the great elite.....Untamed is a worse core ranger.

1) The boonrip while nice..it's not even close to be decent, the most stupid build in this game..the most unviable build...can produce 5 boons while farting every few secs...so removing 2 boons every 15s...does jack

2) The hammer offers no defensive option..

3) Does not work as frontliner at all...it's still a ranger and the pet insta die

 

No amount of buffs can change that, unless they add something like "pet cannot die while unleashed" , which would make sense seen as the pet does no dmg while unleashed but yeah...doubt it will be implemented

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

Furthermore...let's no kid ourselves...without ambush skills, pet unleashed state, the full condi removal and the great elite.....Untamed is a worse core ranger.

1) The boonrip while nice..it's not even close to be decent, the most stupid build in this game..the most unviable build...can produce 5 boons while farting every few secs...so removing 2 boons every 15s...does jack

2) The hammer offers no defensive option..

3) Does not work as frontliner at all...it's still a ranger and the pet insta die

 

No amount of buffs can change that, unless they add something like "pet cannot die while unleashed" , which would make sense seen as the pet does no dmg while unleashed but yeah...doubt it will be implemented

I wrote a novel to answer that but unfortunately I lost it...

In short, it's very easy for Untamed to become popular, they just have to let vow of the untamed and Ferocious symbiosis outgoing damage modifier also affect condition damage (That would be a 32% increase of outgoing condition damage output which would put Untamed amongst the to condi dps).

[InsaneQR.7412]

I think Anet made the Mistake to not opt for an unkillable Totem but a full Pet spec instead.

I would change Untamed pretty simply. Your pet is now a totem with a ground targeted teleport that deals some damage and pulses damage whenever you use a skill that interacts with your pet (such as Maul or winters Bite) or when you CC an enemy. The damage types, condis and boons depends on the pets archetype. The other 2 unleashed skills are OK i think their design is fine but are now the standard skills and their behaviour also changes on the pets archetype.

Further the totem is unkillable, can gain boons and conditions but is not affected by either of them. The amount damage it deals depends on the rangers stats.

Untamed has no pet but 2 different totems instead. Whenever the "Petswap" is activated, the ranger can ambush. Hammer does not change form and all skills are just the CC version that synergizes well with the totem.

 

This would keep the following: Ambushes, micromanagement, Cc orientation.

It would solve the following: access to too many skills and thus spammy clunky playstyle would be reduced, unable to zerg due to pet would be resolved, Complexity would be shifted to the Totem management and less dependend on your "unleashed" state due to the fact that "unleashed" would be abolished.

It would also suit the lore (smol spoiler incoming: Speakers bind spirits to their will and are guided by a warden. Untamed is heavily warden themed and binding an animal spirit to a totem would seeem fitting)

The tradeoff would be lack of an aggro pulling AI and less Pet damage for the purpose of more Area control, AoE and CC.

The complete control over the pet should be base ranger only and druid lose the full pet control as tradeoff instead of the stat nerf because the pets become more wild and less controllable.

 

I think that would improve the ranger class as whole.

Edited March 15, 2022 by InsaneQR.7412

[Mortime.1359]

I wish they'd either improve the unleash mechanic and make it more impactful, maybe even ditch weapon swapping in unleash all together for more powerful unleash combos considering that it's super annoying to keep track of everything when playing it.

 

Or they could just scrap the entire unleashed garbage and let us call and use 2 pets at the same time. Maybe even add an ability like stampede from wow as the elite.

[Thornwolf.9721]

This wouldn't be such a talking point if 
 

1. The new pets weren't uninspired and poorly designed, the phoneix for example is utter trash. (I was hoping we'd get some more of cantha's more dangerous wildlife? Like I dunno.... some of the beasts we couldn't take in guild wars 1.. . the wallow is neat.)
2. The untamed skills dont effect every weapon like hammer, which is should because that'd make build craft way more in depth
3. If the untamed itself gave the pet more abilities ... three still? Why not a fourth of fifth for when we're not using the untamed energy? You can't tell me we wouldn't of "Taught" our pet some new tricks. Maybe just let us decide what skills we want in the last two slots? Like what If I want to be able to add some abilities from other families? Let us customize our companions.
4. The pet changed in shape, size and appearance. Let us use some of the cooler veteran models. Like the broodmothers for drakes or the alpha smokescales for example... the untamed should be about utilizing the pet at its fullest. The models exist so just make the pet a tad larger and utilize those pallet/model changes to make it stand out more when compared to the other variants of ranger.
5. If core pets were not garbo. The reef drake on when it comes to pets outclass our core pets; This needs to change and those need to be brought up to the level of expansion companions. Im still upset with how bad bears are...

 

The kit, feel and weapon are fine. I love all of it. Granted I wish we had a more bestial theme since its all about beastmastery and so on; I don't know why they went with the green goop and the spores/plants and everything... I Feel like we should've leaned more on the norns spirits of the wilds for inspiration? Like the idea that we've really tapped into the animal we roll with, we understand them and have an unmistakable bond. Its not like soulbeast were we fuse but more like we've come to be pack mates. And thus more of our inner beast has come to the forefront? Like we've become more like the animals we travel with. But then even soulbeast had the kind of plant vibe to it... so I dont know. Their stances had spirits pop up and junk I just think that this spec should've been more themed around the animal aspect of ranger. 


Looks kind of odd to have plants and gunk spew everywhere, especially when druid already kind of did that... a lot of that...

Edited March 16, 2022 by Thornwolf.9721

[Strider.7849]

20 hours ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

Not really...untamed is still a more robust duellist than sb against boonheavy specs, better suited than sb in teamfights. It does offer less mobility than sb as expected but the life steal ambush makes it more competitive when facing boontanks in wvw. I have 1v1 several boonbeasts and they either end up stalling, run or lose, this because sb cannot spam boons like some other specs and thus an untamed ironically fare better against boonbeast itself. My winrate against boonbot cele renegade has skyrocketed , same story with cele pewpew scrappers, that lifesteal simply ignores their huge armor and before long they're on the backfoot...it helps that many of them forgot or never learnt how to dodge...being used to facetank dmg for years.

Hammer may be unviable..the new pets are utter rubbish, on top of being bugged...but untamed remains one of the best builds I ever played on ranger. That look on the face of those cele mofos builds after tasting the cold hard ground after so long.......it is worth every pound spent to buy this expansion

Can you share your build please? The reason I ask is because I have literally tried everything I can think of - as someone who enjoys theory crafting and has Mained ranger since launch, literally nothing has worked for untamed.

 

I've learned and spent enough time using hammer to be able to use it effectively and experimented with all pet choices - even some niche options.. and thus far the best I could come up with is a partial diviners/zerker mix and running nature magic for condi clear on dodge, protection/weakness, alongside either beastmastery or marksmanship. 

 

Untamed has some very glaring weaknesses - long cooldowns on hammer for it's vital skills, lack of sustain (even near full Cavaliers will get you instantly blown up in WvW) - and thus reliant on protection, weapons that don't flow well or have synergy with hammer, unreliable stability access, a condition clear that more often then not gets you killed.. I can go on.

 

I've tried all the EoD specs and can at least come up with something but untamed I've been finding useless in both PvE and WvW.. and I know you mentioned that you were defeating every soulbeast you fought, but my experience is I haven't lost a fight against an untamed.. even when I'm outnumbered they just fall over and die through cleave to both power and condi.. especially condi though.

 

Sorry for the rant, would like your build to test though.

[Arheundel.6451]

2 hours ago, Strider.7849 said:

Can you share your build please? The reason I ask is because I have literally tried everything I can think of - as someone who enjoys theory crafting and has Mained ranger since launch, literally nothing has worked for untamed.

 

I've learned and spent enough time using hammer to be able to use it effectively and experimented with all pet choices - even some niche options.. and thus far the best I could come up with is a partial diviners/zerker mix and running nature magic for condi clear on dodge, protection/weakness, alongside either beastmastery or marksmanship. 

 

Untamed has some very glaring weaknesses - long cooldowns on hammer for it's vital skills, lack of sustain (even near full Cavaliers will get you instantly blown up in WvW) - and thus reliant on protection, weapons that don't flow well or have synergy with hammer, unreliable stability access, a condition clear that more often then not gets you killed.. I can go on.

 

I've tried all the EoD specs and can at least come up with something but untamed I've been finding useless in both PvE and WvW.. and I know you mentioned that you were defeating every soulbeast you fought, but my experience is I haven't lost a fight against an untamed.. even when I'm outnumbered they just fall over and die through cleave to both power and condi.. especially condi though.

 

Sorry for the rant, would like your build to test though.

I am literally running your same build...minus the hammer which is for now at least a pure group content/pve weapon....it is trash for wvw duelling unless you're fightining total newbies. My stats are boon based with diviner and some crusader/knight, running NM-WS where NM is the most important line if not running stealth based lines, now here some pointers to win on untamed:

1) Hammer is a NO-NO for duels, too slow...good dmg but too slow for 1v1

2) Learning how to land ambush skills is vital to success, if you can't consistently land ambush skill...you will have a bad time 

3) Learning how to dance around Enveloping Haze and make full of the additional combo field poison is essential

4) Getting in and out of Unleash mode is equally important : unleash pet means 10% less dmg on you and unleash ranger means 15% more dmg for you, this paired with GM Ferocious Symbios, will make sure your burst will hurt a lot and scare most players

5) Ambush skills are tricky to land, wait for the enemy to be close and out of dodge, bait their defenses

6) Chose pets that can quickly turn on enemy...so no EoD pets 

7) Untamed is basically a core ranger with 5 additional F2 so play accordingly and you may win

Untamed is less straightforward than Soulbeast where you just use dolyak stance and go forth, that's not to say that Untamed is better than SB in general, it is easier to lock down an Untamed than a Soulbeast...dolyak stance makes all the difference.....

Where I use and shine with Untamed is against heavy boonbot specs/comps : cele anything but mostly the dreaded quickness grenade scrappers and renegade or other rangers running boonbeast, what all these specs have in common is : ranged dmg and impervious to direct dmg and that's where the Life siphon of Untamed shines, with ambush skills you literally heal yourself and take a big chunk of the enemy health..all the while removing 2-3 boons consistently, a battle of attrition you are bound to win if you play correctly.

A list of ambush skill from best to worst, build yourself around this list:

1) Axe

2) GS

3) Sword

4) Shortbow

5) Hammer

6) Longbow

-Untamed is all about making use of Enveloping haze with leaps/blast finisher to pile pressure on the enemy while negating their main source of dmg be ranged or melee, then Rending vines to remove boons conistently , Landing ambush skill to overcome uber tanky boonbots and finally playing around unleash mode buffs getting in and out to reduce dmg or increase it

-Untamed is worst than SB against pure condi specs, so if you can avoid don't fight pure kitten condi specs like necros...that's really the only condi builds you may do bad aganst on Untamed

Finally it always comes down to personal skill, so when I said that I defeated soulbeast DPS and boonbeast, it means I was better than them in that occasion not that Untamed hardcounter SB. So far I didn't meet a single decent Untamed and that does not mean that I could win on SB if facing players like Vallun, Paper, Boyce and similar level, it is very important to remember that no other ranger spec automatically wins against untamed and neither the latter hardcounter anything

Edited March 16, 2022 by Arheundel.6451

[Strider.7849]

20 minutes ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

I am literally running your same build...minus the hammer which is for now at least a pure group content/pve weapon....it is trash for wvw duelling unless you're fightining total newbies. My stats are boon based with diviner and some crusader/knight, running NM-WS where NM is the most important line if not running stealth based lines, now here some pointers to win on untamed:

1) Hammer is a NO-NO for duels, too slow...good dmg but too slow for 1v1

2) Learning how to land ambush skills is vital to success, if you can't consistently land ambush skill...you will have a bad time 

3) Learning how to dance around Enveloping Haze and make full of the additional combo field poison is essential

4) Getting in and out of Unleash mode is equally important : unleash pet means 10% less dmg on you and unleash ranger means 15% more dmg for you, this paired with GM Ferocious Symbios, will make sure your burst will hurt a lot and scare most players

5) Ambush skills are tricky to land, wait for the enemy to be close and out of dodge, bait their defenses

6) Chose pets that can quickly turn on enemy...so no EoD pets 

7) Untamed is basically a core ranger with 5 additional F2 so play accordingly and you may win

Untamed is less straightforward than Soulbeast where you just use dolyak stance and go forth, that's not to say that Untamed is better than SB in general, it is easier to lock down an Untamed than a Soulbeast...dolyak stance makes all the difference.....

Where I use and shine with Untamed is against heavy boonbot specs/comps : cele anything but mostly the dreaded quickness grenade scrappers and renegade or other rangers running boonbeast, what all these specs have in common is : ranged dmg and impervious to direct dmg and that's where the Life siphon of Untamed shines, with ambush skills you literally heal yourself and take a big chunk of the enemy health..all the while removing 2-3 boons consistently, a battle of attrition you are bound to win if you play correctly.

A list of ambush skill from best to worst, build yourself around this list:

1) Axe

2) GS

3) Sword

4) Shortbow

5) Hammer

6) Longbow

-Untamed is all about making use of Enveloping haze with leaps/blast finisher to pile pressure on the enemy while negating their main source of dmg be ranged or melee, then Rending vines to remove boons conistently , Landing ambush skill to overcome uber tanky boonbots and finally playing around unleash mode buffs getting in and out to reduce dmg or increase it

-Untamed is worst than SB against pure condi specs, so if you can avoid don't fight pure kitten condi specs like necros...that's really the only condi builds you may do bad aganst on Untamed

Finally it always comes down to personal skill, so when I said that I defeated soulbeast DPS and boonbeast, it means I was better than them in that occasion not that Untamed hardcounter SB. So far I didn't meet a single decent Untamed and that does not mean that I could win on SB if facing players like Vallun, Paper, Boyce and similar level, it is very important to remember that no other ranger spec automatically wins against untamed and neither the latter hardcounter anything

Thanks for the in depth reply. I think my issue (since we have similar builds and from what you described playstyles) could be trying to force hammer to work and further pairing it with weapons that have weak ambush skills (longbow according to your list) or weapons with poor synergy (greatsword). 

 

I'm going to swap out my weapon sets, taking axe/x + greatsword. I've tried sword but I haven't liked it after the changes the made to the set, the ambush is really nice though. I currently use hammer/greatsword and while I personally feel both weapons are strong and offer decent mobility combined - they don't synergize well together.

 

In terms of pets, I currently use smokescale/turtle with marksmanship/NM and smokescale/Pheonix with BM/NM (with taunt - Pheonix can do massive damage to people that get taunted into the center of the beam and not sure if it's a bug but it's CC can break 65ish% of a keep lords break bar in one attack).

 

Large-scale is where I have found little to no use (which is what I thought the intention behind this spec was supposed to be for), small-scale it depends on whether you get focused or not - but again it could be my weapon choices, as you mentioned.