Does anyone else feel like Untamed will always feel unfinished without different pet abilities?

[Gyousa.5609]

Title, basically.

Every pet having the same 3 Unleashed pet abilities sucks and willl forever make the spec look unfinished until this gets changed. It's such a bizarre, limiting design choice. Same as how each weapon was given special Unleashed skills, so should different pets.

To me, it's such a glaring break from the usual comprehensive interaction with class mechanics we see in elite spec design. Rangers are a flexible class and the pet system is an extension of that, but Untamed pushes every peg into the square hole.

It feels silly that Soulbeast introduced the archetypes like Stout/Ferocious/Deadly etc which is a good framework for highlighting the differences between certain pets, but Untamed doesn't work with it.

It sucks as well because it could serve as a point of difference from Soulbeast since Untamed can switch pets in combat and have strategic access to a broader variety of skills, which Soulbeast cannot.

At this point I'm not sure if it's just me, but it's such a glaring oversight in design that Untamed will always feel unfinished to me until different pet families or archetypes get access to different Unleashed abilities.

My ideal set up would be:
Unleashed skill 1: Comes from the pet family (i.e. feline, bird, bear etc)
Unleashed skill 2: Comes from the pet archetype (i.e. Ferocious, Deadly etc)
Unleashed skill 3: Can either be generic to all pets, or comes from the archetype

I think that way every pet would feel unique while Unleashed and representative of the fantasy the spec is trying to push. Right now it doesn't feel like our pet is expressing the raw power of nature, but rather it's been taken over by it. And the raw power of nature is unfortunately bland.

Edited March 25, 2022 by Gyousa.5609

[Redfeather.6401]

I wish unleashed ranger felt like a real mode. Like if it altered all the weapon skills somehow. Each weapon type could get a unique little extra from being unleashed like the hammer does.

Edited March 26, 2022 by Redfeather.6401

[InsaneQR.7412]

Tbh that they just took the soulbeast UI and slapped an new icon on it makes it scream more like a beta spec than anything else within untamed IMO.

[Infusion.7149]

You still get to use normal pet skills so the archetypes aren't lost. For example if you use jacaranda you are able to use chain lightning , if you use bristleback then you can use spike barrage.
The reason why unleash pet is probably the way it is relates to filling in the gaps of core ranger: boon rip mainly as well as projectile destruction if you are condi.

DPS pets ought to do more damage on untamed though. It's a problem when you need to micromanage the pet skills. The skills that are beneficial to micromanage such as long channeled CC skills (Charge on Gazelle taking 2 seconds or Wing Buffet on Wyverns takign 3+ seconds) are typically outweighed by the DPS deficit overall across all pets. Perhaps there could be auto-cast skills on pet.

[Ehecatl.9172]

After using it for a while I am more or less content with just the three Unleashed skills. They're all pretty useful in their own way for most pets.

 

If they were to add more pet Unleashed skills though, I'd want them divided more along Melee/Ranged/Support lines than Ferocity/Stout/Deadly.

 

Melee pets would have the same skills they have now.

 

Ranged pets would have a teleport that moves them into range but at a distance from their target. Maybe even a ground target teleport for convenience. Then they'd have a boon rip ranged attack and a ground targeted ranged AoE that stops projectiles from leaving the cloud.

 

Support pets could have a teleport that takes them to the ranger's side and grants barrier or protection or something. The second ability would drop a barrier around the pet that strips boons off enemies who cross it. Then the final ability would drop a poison field around the pet that cures conditions on allies inside it.

 

Something like this would keep the workload low and make sure every pet has skills that set them up to better do what you picked them to do for the most part.

[Acyk.9671]

deleted

Edited April 3, 2022 by Acyk.9671

[Lévis.5489]

Copy pasted pet skills, having only hammer getting all skill changed when unleashed. These really make you feel like you are playing piano, for minimal bonuses

[Krispera.5087]

Have you even seen the damage and power coefficient of the pet unleashed skills ? Nonexistent. 

Edited March 29, 2022 by Krispera.5087

[Lazze.9870]

No, it feels unfinished because they wanted a teamfight bruiser and forgot to delete the pet from it entirely.

Anyways. Add different archtype unleashed skills and you're just creating an even bigger mess than it is. A few solid ideas are better than several mediocre ones.

[Acyk.9671]

deleted

Edited April 3, 2022 by Acyk.9671

[Lazze.9870]

34 minutes ago, Acyk.9671 said:

Soulbeast made the player the center,

Depends on what you're doing, at least you didn't say that soulbeast "removed the pet". You can easily argue that soulbeast enhanced the way of utilizing the pet in a way that core ranger could never do.  Less so the case in PvE for obvious reasons, but merging in and out as you should do when roaming in wvw or playing pvp puts the pet interaction front and center in my opnion.

34 minutes ago, Acyk.9671 said:

that's just how the class is designed

It's a bad design that trickles down onto the elite specs. Druid is a subpar support in pvp/wvw with the pet being partly at fault, and now untamed is supbar "team bruiser" in those same modes.

But, I'm not gonna spiral the off-topic any further. I think leaving the unleashed skills as is is fine, it adds tools that ranger was missing, boon rip and more projectile defense. Then you'd pick the pet based on its core skills and what's needed. I think archtype based skills could see better use on a druid rework, not that I think it would happen.

Edited March 29, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[Acyk.9671]

deleted

 

Edited April 3, 2022 by Acyk.9671

[Lazze.9870]

27 minutes ago, Acyk.9671 said:

The pet is a tool. the player is definitely at the center.

As it should be. Good pet interaction doesn't equal the pet being a the centre. It means that it better uses the pet for the tool that it is. And the pet should be a tool. This game isn't made for overly AI centric builds once you step out of the casual zone. Soulbeast uses that tool better than any other elite spec, and not just simply because you can more or less bypass it by permamerging in pve and other content where the pet is less useful in favor of better player damage, but also by extending it usefulness through merging and unmerging in pvp and such. I do agree that the traits should have more pet interactions though, like adding unmerging effects to the merge traits.

Untamed would probably be even worse if they tried to make it more pet centric.

Edited March 29, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[Acyk.9671]

deleted

Edited April 3, 2022 by Acyk.9671

[Swagger.1459]

Nah, pets are mostly junky. They could flush pets and o wouldn’t care. Soulbeast was the result of players hating the pet and desiring to perma-stow it from the official feedback thread started by Anet.

 

Untamed is a subpar spec with a usefulness  to tag mobs in PvE. Pets are t going to improve the subpar design of hammer, skills, and traits. 

[Swagger.1459]

12 minutes ago, Acyk.9671 said:

No you don't understand what i mean. Core design idea is basically 50/50 share between what the player character and pet contributes. Every E-spec that followed shift the contribution toward the player character at the expense of the pet. Soulbeast being the least "pet friendly" as you can technically play without it. Untamed on the other hand is the most pet contributive centered E-spec we've got. So the only way for us to not be impeded by its presence in large scale is to be able to customize the "relation". Otherwise we are always relegated to what core was: a roamer/skirmisher in small scale.

It sounds a bit abstract but i don't know how to explain more clearly.

Actually, the pet was designed to account for 1/3rd of damage output. There is no 50/50 design relationship there. All the devs did was overload cruddy pet traits into Ranger traits and made it stink for anything other than OWPvE. But I’m sure the people would got hit by a Ranger that blew all their cooldowns and don’t know how to dodge would disagree. 

[Acyk.9671]

deleted

Edited April 3, 2022 by Acyk.9671

[Thornwolf.9721]

2 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

Depends on what you're doing, at least you didn't say that soulbeast "removed the pet". You can easily argue that soulbeast enhanced the way of utilizing the pet in a way that core ranger could never do.  Less so the case in PvE for obvious reasons, but merging in and out as you should do when roaming in wvw or playing pvp puts the pet interaction front and center in my opnion.

It's a bad design that trickles down onto the elite specs. Druid is a subpar support in pvp/wvw with the pet being partly at fault, and now untamed is supbar "team bruiser" in those same modes.

But, I'm not gonna spiral the off-topic any further. I think leaving the unleashed skills as is is fine, it adds tools that ranger was missing, boon rip and more projectile defense. Then you'd pick the pet based on its core skills and what's needed. I think archtype based skills could see better use on a druid rework, not that I think it would happen.

No bad design is making a pet class and then leaving its core mechanic alone for nine years with no touches or love, and most of the base pets (The more abundant ones) as memes or worthless. If you dont like the pet then dont make a ranger, its like if I was going over to the engineer and complaining that it was a tech/non-fantasy themed class. Even its elite specs are focused and double down one different forms of tech.

~Personally the pets need a rework, to be made to be better as they are the classes core mechanic. This would be like if adrenaline on warrior or steal and initiative on thief just DID NOT WORK and 90% of what it gave you was poop.

[The Boz.2038]

Soulbeast had the right idea: There are *way too many* functionally different pets in the game. All need compressed into the five Archetypes, with mostly shared functionality. 

Then we can maybe have a reasonable stab at balancing the thing.

[Kaenaydar.5631]

Things id do to fix untamed power build is lacking in it so up the power based damage. Why doesn't the beastmaster 2 handed skill effect hammer? Make it effected by that skill to up its dps. put auto cast options on untamed pets so we can play freely with that like we do core ranger. Condi based is great but power build should still be a viable option. My build is Marauder on weapons armor and one earring. The rest is berserker up some crit but still have a nice hp set up for pve.  

Edited March 30, 2022 by Kaenaydar.5631

[Lazze.9870]

17 hours ago, Thornwolf.9721 said:

No bad design is making a pet class and then leaving its core mechanic alone for nine years with no touches or love, and most of the base pets (The more abundant ones) as memes or worthless. If you dont like the pet then dont make a ranger, its like if I was going over to the engineer and complaining that it was a tech/non-fantasy themed class. Even its elite specs are focused and double down one different forms of tech.

ZzzzZzzzZzzz...

Anet decided to force a pet AI mechanic into a game that was NOT MADE FOR IT. The combat flow and the terrain in this game does not favor an AI pet as an integral part of every single elite spec. In WvW it makes the class subpar at best for the kind of content that Anet advertises the mode as.

The core ranger mechanic could have been an elite spec on its own, like the mechanist. It should never have been the core mechanic of the class, it is way too limiting.

And the play something else argument? You realise how ironic it is to make the example "why would you pick engine if you don't like the tech class"? What if I want to play the nature hippie class with agile weapons? GW2 doesn't have anything ranger-like without tacking that awful pet mechanic to it. The original game did it the right way by making it optional, Anet fooled themselves in the sequel.

This horribly implemented mechanic will never be 100 % salvageable.

Edited March 30, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[Thornwolf.9721]

5 minutes ago, Lazze.9870 said:

ZzzzZzzzZzzz...

Anet decided to force a pet AI mechanic into a game that was NOT MADE FOR IT. The combat flow and the terrain in this game does not favor an AI pet as an integral part of every single elite spec. In WvW it makes the class subpar at best for the kind of content that Anet advertises the mode as.

The core ranger mechanic could have been an elite spec on its own, like the mechanist. It should never have been the core mechanic of the class, it is way too limiting.

And the play something else argument? You realise how ironic it is to make the example "why would you pick engine if you don't like the tech class"? What if I want to play the nature hippie class with agile weapons? GW2 doesn't have anything ranger-like without tacking that awful pet mechanic to it. The original game did it the right way by making it optional, Anet fooled themselves in the sequel.

This horribly implemented mechanic will never be 100 % salvageable.

Then the class should never of existed and been replaced with corsair which could've been a trapper/paragon hybrid and left it at that. I personally like having a pet if the ranger didn't have one; I'd of never touched the class.

[Lazze.9870]

4 minutes ago, Thornwolf.9721 said:

Then the class should never of existed and been replaced with corsair which could've been a trapper/paragon hybrid and left it at that. I personally like having a pet if the ranger didn't have one; I'd of never touched the class.

The same way the class never existed in the original game?

Oh, that's right. It did exist. With optional pet builds. The same way an elite spec could have given the class a beastmaster spec. The mechanist is a proof of concept.

See, you're telling me to play something else, but it turns out the only aspect of the ranger class you care about is the pet, ignoring all the other themes that are unique to it.

Edited March 30, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[Thornwolf.9721]

15 minutes ago, Lazze.9870 said:

The same way the class never existed in the original game?

Oh, that's right. It did exist. With optional pet builds. The same way an elite spec could have given the class a beastmaster spec. The mechanist is a proof of concept.

See, you're telling me to play something else, but it turns out the only aspect of the ranger class you care about is the pet, ignoring all the other themes that are unique to it.

Nothing is unique to it. Every other game does it too. The only unique aspect is how the pet is handled; Ranger would be a discount thief with less mechanical complexity without the pet because we all know they'd of just slapped stealth on it.

This game was never built with "options" in mind. Not like the original game, the original game was built more as an rpg this is built more like a hack and slash third person action mmo.

[Lazze.9870]

35 minutes ago, Thornwolf.9721 said:

Nothing is unique to it. Every other game does it too. The only unique aspect is how the pet is handled; Ranger would be a discount thief with less mechanical complexity without the pet because we all know they'd of just slapped stealth on it.

This game was never built with "options" in mind. Not like the original game, the original game was built more as an rpg this is built more like a hack and slash third person action mmo.

Are we having fun by repeatedly moving the goal post?

Unqiue within the game. GW2. Not compared to other games. Don't play engineer if you don't wanna be the tech guy. What do you play if you wanna be the nature guy? Ranger.

The certainty of it being a discount thief says more about your imagination. It's not a fact.

Speaking of what the previous game was built for; having AI pets that follow strict terrain rules. Rules that GW2 players don't have to follow, but the pets still do. Recipe for disaster, and we've been witnessing it for soon to be 10 years. Imagine, the game that was better designed for it left it optional, the game that isn't forces it onto one of the classes. It should have been an elite spec at most (would have been way easier to balance too), like what engie got with the mechanist. Simple as that. 

I'm not gonna derail the thread any further. Not like there is any point to it either, you're dying on that useless pet hill.

Edited March 30, 2022 by Lazze.9870