What does Unleash Ranger do if I don't have a hammer?

[Redfeather.6401]

I'm getting mixed info online and I can't tell in game. One skill briefly changes, but it can't be all is it? I'm pressing f5 to change modes to get access to one attack for a couple of seconds?!

[celestia.3829]

almost nothing

[Redfeather.6401]

I made a new character because of how much I didn't like my elementalist's elite and it was feeling stale after all these years. It was a bummer giving up my oldest character and now this new character feels unfinished. I am not liking the the new elites.

[Danikat.8537]

There's 2 big differences: firstly it changes your pet skills, secondly the Vow of the Untamed trait means when your pet is unleashed strike damage done to you is reduced by 25% and when you're unleashed that's gone (so you'll take 25% more damage) and damage you do is increased 25%.

You also get the ambush skills, which can be useful but so far I've not found a time when it felt worthwhile to swap just for that. I either do it to change the pet skills or because of the damage and defense buffs.

[Redfeather.6401]

27 minutes ago, Danikat.8537 said:

There's 2 big differences: firstly it changes your pet skills, secondly the Vow of the Untamed trait means when your pet is unleashed strike damage done to you is reduced by 25% and when you're unleashed that's gone (so you'll take 25% more damage) and damage you do is increased 25%.

You also get the ambush skills, which can be useful but so far I've not found a time when it felt worthwhile to swap just for that. I either do it to change the pet skills or because of the damage and defense buffs.

Thank you. I was looking for stat changes in my hero panel or icons in my boon monitor that described something, but didn't remember that there was unselectable traits that affect it! I need to change the button to switch easier for sure.

[RabbitUp.8294]

1 hour ago, Danikat.8537 said:

There's 2 big differences: firstly it changes your pet skills, secondly the Vow of the Untamed trait means when your pet is unleashed strike damage done to you is reduced by 25% and when you're unleashed that's gone (so you'll take 25% more damage) and damage you do is increased 25%.

Minor nitpick. You indeed take 25% less damage when not unleashed, and normal damage when unleashed. So comparatively, you are taking 33.3% more damage when unleashed.

[Redfeather.6401]

I rebinded the unleashed key to middle mouse button, the scroll wheel click. I wonder what everyone else uses.

[Danikat.8537]

1 hour ago, Redfeather.6401 said:

I rebinded the unleashed key to middle mouse button, the scroll wheel click. I wonder what everyone else uses.

I'm left-handed and use the number pad for combat skills. The F1-4 skills are on the top row and this one is on page down with the special action key on page up. The two extra pet commands are on home and end but I'm not sure I'm going to keep them there yet.

[Tatwi.3562]

 

[Kichwas.7152]

It lets you have an elite spec for ranger that is offensive and still gets to keep the core class mechanic of using a pet.

Took us 3 expansions to have a pet-using spec on the pet class... but we're finally here.

Maybe they need to tweak the numbers a bit, but the concept is finally there.

• Druid: Healer only - outside of raids as a healer, weaker than core ranger.
• Soulbeast: Put pet away offensive
• Untamed: Use pet offensive (might be undertuned).

 

Edited March 22, 2022 by Kichwas.7152

[Kichwas.7152]

3 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

There's 2 big differences: firstly it changes your pet skills, secondly the Vow of the Untamed trait means when your pet is unleashed strike damage done to you is reduced by 25% and when you're unleashed that's gone (so you'll take 25% more damage) and damage you do is increased 25%.

You also get the ambush skills, which can be useful but so far I've not found a time when it felt worthwhile to swap just for that. I either do it to change the pet skills or because of the damage and defense buffs.

 

I think this is the big thing to note when suspecting the spec if under-tuned. If you spend too much time with your pet Unleashed your DPS will go WAY DOWN.

 

The core idea seems to be to keep yourself unleashed as much as possible, and cycle into the pet really fast, spam hit Shift 1,2,3, then unleash yourself and hit Unleashed Ambush at a moment you have otherwise lined up good boons.

 

By contrast, unleashing your pet can be a strat to survive heavy incoming damage without needing a tanky build in moments when you have run out your dodge or otherwise cannot get away. It's basically a "tank stance" minus the aggro.

 

(And if for some reason you want to make a tank... tossing on a Hammer with Knight's stance and going Pet Unleashed makes you possibly a very strong tank that can rapid switch to offensive if people are fool enough to stop attacking you... 🙂 )

 

 

[kharmin.7683]

7 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

You also get the ambush skills, which can be useful but so far I've not found a time when it felt worthwhile to swap just for that.

I guess it depends on what game mode and/or what weapon.  I play OWPvE with my ranger main using Sw/D and LB with untamed and find the ambush rather useful albeit situational.  I bound my F5 to my side-mouse button so I can hop in and out of untamed mode frequently.  Sometimes, it helps to have the pet "normal" for the set skills it has (I use tiger F2 to grant buffs to melee characters around its target which often times is me with my Sw/D while I hit with the ambush skill on sword).

Haven't yet gotten the feel for the hammer.  I probably will never use it.

Obviously YMMV

[Danikat.8537]

7 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

I guess it depends on what game mode and/or what weapon.  I play OWPvE with my ranger main using Sw/D and LB with untamed and find the ambush rather useful albeit situational.  I bound my F5 to my side-mouse button so I can hop in and out of untamed mode frequently.  Sometimes, it helps to have the pet "normal" for the set skills it has (I use tiger F2 to grant buffs to melee characters around its target which often times is me with my Sw/D while I hit with the ambush skill on sword).

Haven't yet gotten the feel for the hammer.  I probably will never use it.

Obviously YMMV

Maybe I should try longbow. I'm using shortbow and sword/torch and don't get much use from the sword one because I'm already in melee range when I use it. Having said that getting used to what they do and how to use them best might be part of it as well. Like learning that I can swap to sword, then unleash and use the auto-attack to launch me into range.

One of the things I like about untamed is it's given me a lot of extra buttons and options (besides ranger I mainly play elementalist and engineer) but I am finding it a lot to get used to. I actually ended up swapping back to soulbeast when I was trying to do the Dragon's End meta because I decided knowing what I'm doing and how to do it was more important than trying out all my new buttons. I think I need to work my way through everything and see how it works and how I could use it.

[kharmin.7683]

2 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

Maybe I should try longbow. I'm using shortbow and sword/torch and don't get much use from the sword one because I'm already in melee range when I use it. Having said that getting used to what they do and how to use them best might be part of it as well. Like learning that I can swap to sword, then unleash and use the auto-attack to launch me into range.

One of the things I like about untamed is it's given me a lot of extra buttons and options (besides ranger I mainly play elementalist and engineer) but I am finding it a lot to get used to. I actually ended up swapping back to soulbeast when I was trying to do the Dragon's End meta because I decided knowing what I'm doing and how to do it was more important than trying out all my new buttons. I think I need to work my way through everything and see how it works and how I could use it.

I've seen in the Ranger sub-forum where some players use main hand axe and enjoy the ambush from that.  Might be worth a look?  The wiki does a good job of showing which ambush skills go on which main hand weapons.

I have been enjoying several of the new specs by not using the weapon that is specifically for it.  True, I do tend to lose a good bit mechanically as I limit my options this way, but in some cases I really don't like the weapon that is intended to compliment the spec.

The ambush on main hand sword is also a daze, which is cool.  I will jump in with Sword 2, then dagger 4, toggle F2 for the ambush, strike with sword 1 and then sword 2 for the second attack that is still available.  Toggle F2 for my tiger's boon (fury) before toggling F5 again.  Then, I might sword 3 to bounce out (which re-activates sword 2) while F1 the tiger for the pet's unleash.  Rinse and repeat, which the very short cool down on F5 helps a lot.

I get you going back to SB for the meta.  Far easier to engage with content with a well known spec.  🙂   That's why I've done a good deal with core ranger over the last year or so.

Not optimal, sure, but I enjoy all of the bouncing around and the unleashing between my ranger and her pet.

[Diak Atoli.2085]

The Ambush skill for Longbow is actually very good, as it reduces your cooldowns depending on the number of targets hit. 3-7 seconds off Rapid Fire and Barrage is very good.

 

Unfortunately, Untamed has the same problem as offensive core Rangers: The pet doesn't do enough raw DPS to make up for low power coefficients.

[Ehecatl.9172]

9 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

I've seen in the Ranger sub-forum where some players use main hand axe and enjoy the ambush from that.  Might be worth a look?  The wiki does a good job of showing which ambush skills go on which main hand weapons.

 

The ambush skill for mainhand axe definitely feels powerful. I've not really run the numbers but its basically a massive scattershot that can do heavy damage to groups of weak enemies.

 

Axe in general feels good with Untamed. Path of Scars procs all your disabling traits and Whirling Defense can hit a ton of targets in quick succession to drop the cooldown on Forest's Fortification. A point blank Splitblade and the bounce from the auto attack will also drop Forest Fortification's cooldown a fair bit.

 

I've been using dual axes for my ranged option over longbow and been having a good time with it.