A proposal for the untamed

[Silvoshipnos.2089]

Not long ago I made a post about how I didn't like the untamed and proposed that the pet be removed in order to address the issues I see with the spec and while some people agreed, some others vehemently opposed the idea of losing the pet. As such, I've been rethinking things trying to find a proposed solution for the untamed that keeps the pet. Maybe this helps, maybe Anet can find some value in these ideas for expac 4 but I'm kinda bored right now and I thought I'd write this down.

My proposal starts by making it so we have only one pet available during combat and that its skills be changed by equipping the elite spec. I would propose either we choose a pet from the currently available pool which gets modified or we get an entirely new one that is only available through the elite spec (we tapped into the power of echovald an now an urgoz-like entity is acting as our pet or it has possessed our pet). The current unleash pet skills (Venomous Outburst, Rending Vines and Enveloping Haze) could be used as the new pet's skills or if we are just getting one of the old pets, make it so that the effects of these skills are added to the ordinary per skills. One of these becomes the F2, I'd suggest the Enveloping haze, and the others are used with the old AI regular casting that pets had prior to the Untamed.

The pet swap could be replaced by an unleashing skill that makes the pet or both the pet and the ranger have access to ambush attacks. This unleash mechanic would inherit traits from the pet swap to retain the possibility of triggering related traits. Make these meaty strong pet attacks so that the gameplay is to set up the pet ambushes. You cc, the pet strikes. This gives some focus to the pet in the spec. I'd suggest that the hammer only has one mode, the cc one, which plays intro the whole idea of having the pet strike to the foes we've cc'd. I'd suggest that the pet's health pool be increased, to account for the loss of the pet swap. Maybe add some healing or life steal to the pet's ambush to account for the lack of the pet swap that essentially heals the pets. Life steal on the ambushes is already a mechanic, just extend it to the pet. Also, make it so that the return to you (F3 on normal ranger) is a teleport. The pet just teleports to you, it's the unleashed magic. So that your pet doesn't just stay in a zerg of 25 people getting cc'd to death while you call it. I think this should be the way it works, you can do this with the soulbeast if your pet is off in the distance dying, it's good.

I think the pet stats should work like the mechanist's do. The pet inherits certain stats from the ranger in a way that is modified via the traits. The traits could then affect the ambush skills, the new pet skills, the autoattacks of the pet, etc. Have a condi line that adds conditions to the attacks and the other skills, have a power one, that makes the attacks rip boons or steal health. Something that centres the pet and its use, not a half baked soulbeast with a pet.

With the cantrips, I can't really think of anything, I think it would be cool if the effects affected both the pet and the ranger or exclusively the pet, but a heal skill that doesn't heal the pet when your profession mechanics are centred around having a pet is, in technical jargon, "garbage". Not being able to die for 3 seconds is kinda cool, but unless you cast it in a way that you reach 0 health during the cast, it's hot garbage.

That way we have a trade off, we aren't getting a pet swap and if we go the route of entirely modifying the pet skills, we'd be losing access to some of the ordinary beast skills we normally have. If Anet wants to keep the "high control" pet skill scheme that untamed currently has, replacing all skills with new unique ones I think would be better, these skills would not be hiding others behind the unleash mechanic and they are more impactful long cd skills that you may want to use more deliberately. Currently there are some useful and long cd skills that are good, but things like the wyvern's tail sweep, which cripples every 12 seconds, the bird's "swoop" which applies ONE stack of vulnerability every 8 seconds or the iboga's "crippling anguish" which just has a cd of 5 seconds aren't good for this control scheme, they are underwhelming or require too much management for something that banal. I also think that increasing the pet's health pool, adding some healing to the new f4 mechanic and having the pet port to you upon calling it could make it more survivable in WvW. As for the ranger ambush skills, well, keep them or take them away, put their functionality into the pet ambushes or in a drawer for future specs, I'm proposing a pet centred spec, I don't care about this silly little gimmick that was added because otherwise the unleash mechanic wasn't interacting with anything else. It's just a silly little band aid.

I don't know it this is something that Anet has the time to implement for the untamed, but I hope that it can at least serve as an inspiration for the 4th expac ranger.

Again, I'm kinda bored and I wanted to get this idea written down

Edited April 6, 2022 by Silvoshipnos.2089

[enkeny.6937]

Nice post, but I say 'no thanks'.
Pet swap is needed. Traits, pet stuck, pet revive, pet condition cleanse.... soulbeast don't have pet swap, but it all cowered with merge. untamed has a trade off: no auto casting for pet skills. some may say it is not a trade off, but it increase the skill leveling for effective play. 
Mechanists may apply stats for the mech, but they have only 1 type of pet, so need some way to modify. Rangers has 50 pet and the stats not important. Difference in pet dps is ~1k, expect iboga, but it is a special case. 

Untamed need more work, but no need fundamental changes.

[Thornwolf.9721]

On 4/6/2022 at 7:34 AM, Silvoshipnos.2089 said:

Not long ago I made a post about how I didn't like the untamed and proposed that the pet be removed in order to address the issues I see with the spec and while some people agreed, some others vehemently opposed the idea of losing the pet. As such, I've been rethinking things trying to find a proposed solution for the untamed that keeps the pet. Maybe this helps, maybe Anet can find some value in these ideas for expac 4 but I'm kinda bored right now and I thought I'd write this down.

My proposal starts by making it so we have only one pet available during combat and that its skills be changed by equipping the elite spec. I would propose either we choose a pet from the currently available pool which gets modified or we get an entirely new one that is only available through the elite spec (we tapped into the power of echovald an now an urgoz-like entity is acting as our pet or it has possessed our pet). The current unleash pet skills (Venomous Outburst, Rending Vines and Enveloping Haze) could be used as the new pet's skills or if we are just getting one of the old pets, make it so that the effects of these skills are added to the ordinary per skills. One of these becomes the F2, I'd suggest the Enveloping haze, and the others are used with the old AI regular casting that pets had prior to the Untamed.

The pet swap could be replaced by an unleashing skill that makes the pet or both the pet and the ranger have access to ambush attacks. This unleash mechanic would inherit traits from the pet swap to retain the possibility of triggering related traits. Make these meaty strong pet attacks so that the gameplay is to set up the pet ambushes. You cc, the pet strikes. This gives some focus to the pet in the spec. I'd suggest that the hammer only has one mode, the cc one, which plays intro the whole idea of having the pet strike to the foes we've cc'd. I'd suggest that the pet's health pool be increased, to account for the loss of the pet swap. Maybe add some healing or life steal to the pet's ambush to account for the lack of the pet swap that essentially heals the pets. Life steal on the ambushes is already a mechanic, just extend it to the pet. Also, make it so that the return to you (F3 on normal ranger) is a teleport. The pet just teleports to you, it's the unleashed magic. So that your pet doesn't just stay in a zerg of 25 people getting cc'd to death while you call it. I think this should be the way it works, you can do this with the soulbeast if your pet is off in the distance dying, it's good.

I think the pet stats should work like the mechanist's do. The pet inherits certain stats from the ranger in a way that is modified via the traits. The traits could then affect the ambush skills, the new pet skills, the autoattacks of the pet, etc. Have a condi line that adds conditions to the attacks and the other skills, have a power one, that makes the attacks rip boons or steal health. Something that centres the pet and its use, not a half baked soulbeast with a pet.

With the cantrips, I can't really think of anything, I think it would be cool if the effects affected both the pet and the ranger or exclusively the pet, but a heal skill that doesn't heal the pet when your profession mechanics are centred around having a pet is, in technical jargon, "garbage". Not being able to die for 3 seconds is kinda cool, but unless you cast it in a way that you reach 0 health during the cast, it's hot garbage.

That way we have a trade off, we aren't getting a pet swap and if we go the route of entirely modifying the pet skills, we'd be losing access to some of the ordinary beast skills we normally have. If Anet wants to keep the "high control" pet skill scheme that untamed currently has, replacing all skills with new unique ones I think would be better, these skills would not be hiding others behind the unleash mechanic and they are more impactful long cd skills that you may want to use more deliberately. Currently there are some useful and long cd skills that are good, but things like the wyvern's tail sweep, which cripples every 12 seconds, the bird's "swoop" which applies ONE stack of vulnerability every 8 seconds or the iboga's "crippling anguish" which just has a cd of 5 seconds aren't good for this control scheme, they are underwhelming or require too much management for something that banal. I also think that increasing the pet's health pool, adding some healing to the new f4 mechanic and having the pet port to you upon calling it could make it more survivable in WvW. As for the ranger ambush skills, well, keep them or take them away, put their functionality into the pet ambushes or in a drawer for future specs, I'm proposing a pet centred spec, I don't care about this silly little gimmick that was added because otherwise the unleash mechanic wasn't interacting with anything else. It's just a silly little band aid.

I don't know it this is something that Anet has the time to implement for the untamed, but I hope that it can at least serve as an inspiration for the 4th expac ranger.

Again, I'm kinda bored and I wanted to get this idea written down

I like this. 

I personally think it should be we pick a pet from our current pool (Or future pets they add later on as well) And it gets amped up into an adult, Probably for example if you use one of the drakes a broodmother or some such thing. Its size is increased to compensate and it gets a noticable and definably different look to its baby counter parts. 

You only have one pet, but it has more abilities and it scales alongside you. It also is more durable and is meant to be your actual combat companion; This could work a lot like the white lion from warhammer online. Where once you hit max level the lion would be full grown, massive and could even "Fetch" enemies and drag them back to you.  A cool concept too could be that due to its size, maybe you could leap onto its back and ride it for a short time to chase down enemies. I feel like a big thing they've forgotten was the "Hunt" and "Primal aggression" This spec represents. For all intents and purposes this is rangers version of Berserker and it even has its own voice lines too boot? Why take all the time to give us that feeling when we don't really get to utilize it? I fully agree that it feels like core + and that mainly is the issue. Druid and soul beast both feel unique when compared to core; Untamed feels like a more powerful core ranger.
 

I feel like if you did this, as well as offering it three more skills to compensate for the lack of a pet swap it'd be fine. Let core and druid both be able to juggle their pets. (Ideally druid should have its own form of variant of the pet mechanic, but lets not get into the wish for will-o-wisps.) Let untamed be like a reverse soulbeast; Rather than merging into one to combine our power we instead have learned to work together. Fight as one but separate, to hunt and show the "Strength of our pack" 

I honestly want untamed to be a feared spec. Like sure it shouldn't obliterate everything no contest; Bu It should be at the very least something you might not want to tango with alone. Additionally it should have more synergies with beastmastery; But then I feel like beastmastery needs a rework as a whole. As of right now it doesn't feel like the best option for really any build outside of core. (Funny since we're supposed to be the beast masters so to speak.)

[Thornwolf.9721]

On 4/7/2022 at 4:05 AM, enkeny.6937 said:

Nice post, but I say 'no thanks'.
Pet swap is needed. Traits, pet stuck, pet revive, pet condition cleanse.... soulbeast don't have pet swap, but it all cowered with merge. untamed has a trade off: no auto casting for pet skills. some may say it is not a trade off, but it increase the skill leveling for effective play. 
Mechanists may apply stats for the mech, but they have only 1 type of pet, so need some way to modify. Rangers has 50 pet and the stats not important. Difference in pet dps is ~1k, expect iboga, but it is a special case. 

Untamed need more work, but no need fundamental changes.

To be fair they could work a way to take advantage of those traits no? We've seen them do it with warrior and bladesworn, necromancer and scourge. Heck even thief's new spec has the ability to make it so that stealth provides barrier? Which is a weird interaction for shadow arts. I think if they REALLY wanted too they could make it work, for example make the swap traits just affect when you dance between unleashed state? Everytime you swap it those traits trigger? That'd basically ensure you could still utilize it.

As for the revive thing, make it so if you flip to unleash your pet it revives your pet but places unleashed form on a much longer cooldown. There are easier ways to do this than just "No just leave it as core +"

[Swagger.1459]

On 4/6/2022 at 8:34 AM, Silvoshipnos.2089 said:

Not long ago I made a post about how I didn't like the untamed and proposed that the pet be removed in order to address the issues I see with the spec and while some people agreed, some others vehemently opposed the idea of losing the pet. As such, I've been rethinking things trying to find a proposed solution for the untamed that keeps the pet. Maybe this helps, maybe Anet can find some value in these ideas for expac 4 but I'm kinda bored right now and I thought I'd write this down.

My proposal starts by making it so we have only one pet available during combat and that its skills be changed by equipping the elite spec. I would propose either we choose a pet from the currently available pool which gets modified or we get an entirely new one that is only available through the elite spec (we tapped into the power of echovald an now an urgoz-like entity is acting as our pet or it has possessed our pet). The current unleash pet skills (Venomous Outburst, Rending Vines and Enveloping Haze) could be used as the new pet's skills or if we are just getting one of the old pets, make it so that the effects of these skills are added to the ordinary per skills. One of these becomes the F2, I'd suggest the Enveloping haze, and the others are used with the old AI regular casting that pets had prior to the Untamed.

The pet swap could be replaced by an unleashing skill that makes the pet or both the pet and the ranger have access to ambush attacks. This unleash mechanic would inherit traits from the pet swap to retain the possibility of triggering related traits. Make these meaty strong pet attacks so that the gameplay is to set up the pet ambushes. You cc, the pet strikes. This gives some focus to the pet in the spec. I'd suggest that the hammer only has one mode, the cc one, which plays intro the whole idea of having the pet strike to the foes we've cc'd. I'd suggest that the pet's health pool be increased, to account for the loss of the pet swap. Maybe add some healing or life steal to the pet's ambush to account for the lack of the pet swap that essentially heals the pets. Life steal on the ambushes is already a mechanic, just extend it to the pet. Also, make it so that the return to you (F3 on normal ranger) is a teleport. The pet just teleports to you, it's the unleashed magic. So that your pet doesn't just stay in a zerg of 25 people getting cc'd to death while you call it. I think this should be the way it works, you can do this with the soulbeast if your pet is off in the distance dying, it's good.

I think the pet stats should work like the mechanist's do. The pet inherits certain stats from the ranger in a way that is modified via the traits. The traits could then affect the ambush skills, the new pet skills, the autoattacks of the pet, etc. Have a condi line that adds conditions to the attacks and the other skills, have a power one, that makes the attacks rip boons or steal health. Something that centres the pet and its use, not a half baked soulbeast with a pet.

With the cantrips, I can't really think of anything, I think it would be cool if the effects affected both the pet and the ranger or exclusively the pet, but a heal skill that doesn't heal the pet when your profession mechanics are centred around having a pet is, in technical jargon, "garbage". Not being able to die for 3 seconds is kinda cool, but unless you cast it in a way that you reach 0 health during the cast, it's hot garbage.

That way we have a trade off, we aren't getting a pet swap and if we go the route of entirely modifying the pet skills, we'd be losing access to some of the ordinary beast skills we normally have. If Anet wants to keep the "high control" pet skill scheme that untamed currently has, replacing all skills with new unique ones I think would be better, these skills would not be hiding others behind the unleash mechanic and they are more impactful long cd skills that you may want to use more deliberately. Currently there are some useful and long cd skills that are good, but things like the wyvern's tail sweep, which cripples every 12 seconds, the bird's "swoop" which applies ONE stack of vulnerability every 8 seconds or the iboga's "crippling anguish" which just has a cd of 5 seconds aren't good for this control scheme, they are underwhelming or require too much management for something that banal. I also think that increasing the pet's health pool, adding some healing to the new f4 mechanic and having the pet port to you upon calling it could make it more survivable in WvW. As for the ranger ambush skills, well, keep them or take them away, put their functionality into the pet ambushes or in a drawer for future specs, I'm proposing a pet centred spec, I don't care about this silly little gimmick that was added because otherwise the unleash mechanic wasn't interacting with anything else. It's just a silly little band aid.

I don't know it this is something that Anet has the time to implement for the untamed, but I hope that it can at least serve as an inspiration for the 4th expac ranger.

Again, I'm kinda bored and I wanted to get this idea written down

Nice write up. I disagree with the suggestions. The Untamed hammer and slot skills need major work first. Second, fundamental pet issues from 2012 need to be addressed and resolved before the devs pour any time and resources into pets. 

Edited April 12, 2022 by Swagger.1459

[enkeny.6937]

On 4/11/2022 at 12:29 AM, Thornwolf.9721 said:

To be fair they could work a way to take advantage of those traits no? We've seen them do it with warrior and bladesworn, necromancer and scourge. Heck even thief's new spec has the ability to make it so that stealth provides barrier? Which is a weird interaction for shadow arts. I think if they REALLY wanted too they could make it work, for example make the swap traits just affect when you dance between unleashed state? Everytime you swap it those traits trigger? That'd basically ensure you could still utilize it.

As for the revive thing, make it so if you flip to unleash your pet it revives your pet but places unleashed form on a much longer cooldown. There are easier ways to do this than just "No just leave it as core +"

Of course, they can, but they don't want. just look at 'Beast' skills. if the pet is unleased, we have no beast skills for traits. They could just make one of the three, but no. 

if unlease has longer cd, because the pet died, that means, ambush skills and hammer has a hard time.

On 4/11/2022 at 12:26 AM, Thornwolf.9721 said:

I like this. 

I personally think it should be we pick a pet from our current pool (Or future pets they add later on as well) And it gets amped up into an adult, Probably for example if you use one of the drakes a broodmother or some such thing. Its size is increased to compensate and it gets a noticable and definably different look to its baby counter parts. 

You only have one pet, but it has more abilities and it scales alongside you. It also is more durable and is meant to be your actual combat companion; This could work a lot like the white lion from warhammer online. Where once you hit max level the lion would be full grown, massive and could even "Fetch" enemies and drag them back to you.  A cool concept too could be that due to its size, maybe you could leap onto its back and ride it for a short time to chase down enemies. I feel like a big thing they've forgotten was the "Hunt" and "Primal aggression" This spec represents. For all intents and purposes this is rangers version of Berserker and it even has its own voice lines too boot? Why take all the time to give us that feeling when we don't really get to utilize it? I fully agree that it feels like core + and that mainly is the issue. Druid and soul beast both feel unique when compared to core; Untamed feels like a more powerful core ranger.
 

I feel like if you did this, as well as offering it three more skills to compensate for the lack of a pet swap it'd be fine. Let core and druid both be able to juggle their pets. (Ideally druid should have its own form of variant of the pet mechanic, but lets not get into the wish for will-o-wisps.) Let untamed be like a reverse soulbeast; Rather than merging into one to combine our power we instead have learned to work together. Fight as one but separate, to hunt and show the "Strength of our pack" 

I honestly want untamed to be a feared spec. Like sure it shouldn't obliterate everything no contest; Bu It should be at the very least something you might not want to tango with alone. Additionally it should have more synergies with beastmastery; But then I feel like beastmastery needs a rework as a whole. As of right now it doesn't feel like the best option for really any build outside of core. (Funny since we're supposed to be the beast masters so to speak.)

This concept makes sense, it is like the mechanic ranger version. pet swap can be used, to 'reset' your pet. But the way the pet is used now is more like focusing F2 while the pet can make... nothing else. It may be sounds bad, but it is not. The efficiency of your character is depend your skills, not from AI. (and that's why Sic' em is useless....)

But I still don't see why people want only one pet? For soulbeast, I can see reasons, like mostly in merge form, merged and switch both triggering traits, don't switch role in the middle of the fight, cc bomb....
untamed only has 2 trait, that effect the pets. (and one is the direct control of the pet skills) If you want a pet build, core ranger is still better than untamed. 
So why do people want more trade off?

[Thornwolf.9721]

3 hours ago, enkeny.6937 said:

Of course, they can, but they don't want. just look at 'Beast' skills. if the pet is unleased, we have no beast skills for traits. They could just make one of the three, but no. 

if unlease has longer cd, because the pet died, that means, ambush skills and hammer has a hard time.

This concept makes sense, it is like the mechanic ranger version. pet swap can be used, to 'reset' your pet. But the way the pet is used now is more like focusing F2 while the pet can make... nothing else. It may be sounds bad, but it is not. The efficiency of your character is depend your skills, not from AI. (and that's why Sic' em is useless....)

But I still don't see why people want only one pet? For soulbeast, I can see reasons, like mostly in merge form, merged and switch both triggering traits, don't switch role in the middle of the fight, cc bomb....
untamed only has 2 trait, that effect the pets. (and one is the direct control of the pet skills) If you want a pet build, core ranger is still better than untamed. 
So why do people want more trade off?

Because this trade off comes with the assumption that the pet we'd have would be stronger than anything core or the others would have access too in that domain. As well it'd be a core and fundamental part of our kit; Like it was for the white lion for example.

[enkeny.6937]

The problem is, it won't be a fair trade off. 1 pet with huge stat is better then 2 pet with switching. usually don't switch pet when not needed, so hardly ever use a build with 2 pet. (expect for cc, but they are nothing else, then cc)
So a fair trade would be: transferring your stats to the pets (lowering yours), not denying pet switch. 

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

2 hours ago, enkeny.6937 said:

The problem is, it won't be a fair trade off. 1 pet with huge stat is better then 2 pet with switching. usually don't switch pet when not needed, so hardly ever use a build with 2 pet. (expect for cc, but they are nothing else, then cc)
So a fair trade would be: transferring your stats to the pets (lowering yours), not denying pet switch. 

Removing the pet swap but beefing up the single pet would absolutely be a fair trade. If it's going to compete with soulbeast, then things need to be able to do more damage. If it's going to compete with druid for boons or support, things would need to give better boons (or heal, in the case of the fern hound. How do we not have more healing pets???).

 

Lowering the rangers stats cuts into the possibilities for making something like a boon supportive version of untamed, where the ranger and the pet give different boons (quick or alac on the pet skills perhaps, perhaps, and the ranger uses things like warhorn 5, protect me!, etc to give more common boons, while also able to output some damage like power quick catalyst, power quick scrapper, and similar boon dps builds).

 

They advertised this as something where you'd work with your pet with the intro video and some of the demonstrations. This spec is meant to work with the pet, unlike what you seem to think from your previous comments. It needs a change that affects the pet on some level beyond the 2 traits that affect them in untamed's lineup.

[Thornwolf.9721]

3 hours ago, enkeny.6937 said:

The problem is, it won't be a fair trade off. 1 pet with huge stat is better then 2 pet with switching. usually don't switch pet when not needed, so hardly ever use a build with 2 pet. (expect for cc, but they are nothing else, then cc)
So a fair trade would be: transferring your stats to the pets (lowering yours), not denying pet switch. 

Id never play it if it sacrificed its own stats. That's bad design.

One pet, better power and more oomph too it. Give it six skills instead of three without the unleashed form and then six more with unleashed; Let pet swap revive it rather than change pets and make our pet choices actually matter. Because as of now the choice means nothing

[enkeny.6937]

Do you even need to think to choose:
1 pet with extra stat (class mechanic got stronger, but mirroring your pet. So you lose your second, usually back up, pet's F2 skill)
or
switching between 2 weaker pet. (switching pets don't make them better, in fact that usually make them weaker)

It seems equal, really. (no, they don't)
Why do you even think about the second option? 

get weaker pet + astral form (you get 1 extra class mechanic but your previous got weaker) 
or 1 pet + merge form (your "second pet' is the form. Before it was 2 pet 2 merge form, it wasn't a fair trade. it wasn't a trade.)
 

3 hours ago, Thornwolf.9721 said:

Id never play it if it sacrificed its own stats. That's bad design.

That was the core ranger design. Lowering the base stats, because we have pets. 

I see your idea, I even like it. My problem is: from the core ranger to your idea it is a too wide jump, that's all. 
It is easier deleting your previous class mechanic and give a totally new, like the mechanist, than deleting your class mechanic and give back a better one. Sadly the lion theme is works better for every other profession....

[Thornwolf.9721]

6 minutes ago, enkeny.6937 said:

Do you even need to think to choose:
1 pet with extra stat (class mechanic got stronger, but mirroring your pet. So you lose your second, usually back up, pet's F2 skill)
or
switching between 2 weaker pet. (switching pets don't make them better, in fact that usually make them weaker)

It seems equal, really. (no, they don't)
Why do you even think about the second option? 

get weaker pet + astral form (you get 1 extra class mechanic but your previous got weaker) 
or 1 pet + merge form (your "second pet' is the form. Before it was 2 pet 2 merge form, it wasn't a fair trade. it wasn't a trade.)
 

That was the core ranger design. Lowering the base stats, because we have pets. 

I see your idea, I even like it. My problem is: from the core ranger to your idea it is a too wide jump, that's all. 
It is easier deleting your previous class mechanic and give a totally new, like the mechanist, than deleting your class mechanic and give back a better one. Sadly the lion theme is works better for every other profession....

Im not saying that its specifically lion themed; Im using that class as that is as close as anything can come to untamed from any game I've played.
 

1. Scourge did it
2. mechanist has changed its core mechanic too
3. spellbreaker and now bladesworn in a way

all of them have done this, so rather than being rid of it the class is just altered to make it a extreme variant of the class. I think they could do it if they just let whatever pet we picked get changed into a bigger variant of itself; We have veteran/alpha/broodmother models for a reason. They are both visually distinct and illustrate what would be essentially our evolution as a warrior of nature. Plus having one big pet with our stats both being better than they are now (didn't know about the core thing) Would mean that we are following the theme of fighting with our pet.

 

It works as a visual tell as well that we are an untamed, our pet looks different when standing next to every other form of ranger which is because it is  supposed to the focus of this spec. As such it should be heavily augmented and changed on its core nature and function just like with the aforementioned classes above.

Also too loosing your second pets abilities thats why I stated the big pet gets SIX abilities base with the unleashed skills. So you essentially would have twelve pet abilities for both forms; Which means you didn't loose them ... all you did was choose to focus on a your companion. Which as its stated that we have trained and mastered our bond with them; It'd only make sense that its able to provide and do more beside us in combat.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Thornwolf.9721

[Loboling.5293]

I'm a real fan of this idea. I feel like untamed pet needs to be doing way more damage, but I'd accept a tradeoff of losing a pet for a more powerful version. Maybe even make it a grandmaster trait and shuffle out some of the terrible traits lingering in the tree. I think if a fully specced out pet did about 10k damage with all its skills on cooldown, we'd have a really solid PvE spec. 

 

Untamed would be dealing about 40k damage, with a large emphasis on pet damage compared to all other specs. The more I think about it, the more I like it. But I'd prefer to see it as a grandmaster than a default tradeoff in case someone prefers using the immense utility of two fully controllable pets. 

 

In fact, I'd say the only grandmaster I like is the cooldown reduction on cc. Maybe make one of them for the beffy super pet and the second one reduces the cooldown of pet skills and unleash pet skills. So it's buff ranger, buff one pet and improve utility with pets for the third. That would be so much more interesting!🥰

[Gotejjeken.1267]

I mean, maybe if they made a single pet and the unleash itself powered it up. 

So put the unleash on a 15s CD or whatever and have loud whistle reduce the CD like it would pet swap.  When the pet is unleashed, it'd get the ranger's stats and have the unleashed skills in addition to its normal ones; I'm with the idea of leaving the pet work like it always does and only have the F2 + Unleashed skills as controllable.  

Unleashing the pet would also revive it to put it inline with Soulbeast.

Not sure what to do with the ranger portion of the unleash though except maybe increased stats similar to merged soulbeast + beastmastery.  I'd get rid of the hammer swap altogether and just make it work like greatsword, with some CC skills and some damage ones (and a proper leap for kitten sake).

Only thing I'd worry about is pet pathing, there's no way 99% of the pets can hit moving targets to make this worthwhile.  They'd have to change all of their attacks to teleports or something, which seems a bit much lol.  I guess otherwise we can just camp unleash ranger and get our stats powered up like soulbeast does, but with the benefit of an extra CC from the pet.  I also like the idea of teleport on recall that way you can reposition the pet like you would with pet swap, as that's important.  

[NuggetScout.3782]

Untamed should be called unplayed - a ranger main.

 

Im tired of it, its soul beast but with worse healing and damage than druid/sbeast combined. and dont get me started, is it a  power spec or a condi spec, it feels stuck in the middle of it all and STILL we have ZERO team synergy.

 

[enkeny.6937]

5 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

I mean, maybe if they made a single pet and the unleash itself powered it up. 

So put the unleash on a 15s CD or whatever and have loud whistle reduce the CD like it would pet swap.  When the pet is unleashed, it'd get the ranger's stats and have the unleashed skills in addition to its normal ones; I'm with the idea of leaving the pet work like it always does and only have the F2 + Unleashed skills as controllable.  

Unleashing the pet would also revive it to put it inline with Soulbeast.

Not sure what to do with the ranger portion of the unleash though except maybe increased stats similar to merged soulbeast + beastmastery.  I'd get rid of the hammer swap altogether and just make it work like greatsword, with some CC skills and some damage ones (and a proper leap for kitten sake).

Only thing I'd worry about is pet pathing, there's no way 99% of the pets can hit moving targets to make this worthwhile.  They'd have to change all of their attacks to teleports or something, which seems a bit much lol.  I guess otherwise we can just camp unleash ranger and get our stats powered up like soulbeast does, but with the benefit of an extra CC from the pet.  I also like the idea of teleport on recall that way you can reposition the pet like you would with pet swap, as that's important.  

If you read some beta report, having unleash a 10 sec cd was a huge issue. synergy with traits (loosing the +25% damage will hurt), and hammer in its current form will be useless. 
I'm mostly agree the other parts, but they can be more suitable solutions. (no need teleport, just improve the ai.)

[enkeny.6937]

5 hours ago, Loboling.5293 said:

I'm a real fan of this idea. I feel like untamed pet needs to be doing way more damage, but I'd accept a tradeoff of losing a pet for a more powerful version. Maybe even make it a grandmaster trait and shuffle out some of the terrible traits lingering in the tree. I think if a fully specced out pet did about 10k damage with all its skills on cooldown, we'd have a really solid PvE spec. 

 

Untamed would be dealing about 40k damage, with a large emphasis on pet damage compared to all other specs. The more I think about it, the more I like it. But I'd prefer to see it as a grandmaster than a default tradeoff in case someone prefers using the immense utility of two fully controllable pets. 

 

In fact, I'd say the only grandmaster I like is the cooldown reduction on cc. Maybe make one of them for the beffy super pet and the second one reduces the cooldown of pet skills and unleash pet skills. So it's buff ranger, buff one pet and improve utility with pets for the third. That would be so much more interesting!🥰

I like your idea too, I just say, I don't feel it balanced, not compered to core ranger. (other professions don't has base pets to compared too)

1) the reversed hyena syndrome: do you ever use hyena? no? Well, because it has a summon ability, it's power is halved. The so called balance here is you have 2 hyena so half power will be the same. Expect, the summoned one not usually up! it disappear if you go far, when killed or when switching pet. But the cd is huge.
I feel your pet version is like merge the 2 pet into 1. So instead of to little you got one big. This trade will be ok, if both pet would be used in the same time. (like the hyena with it's skill up)

2) the druid problem: druid got pet stat nerfed, because over performing. As a pure support, the pet damage was so significant (with iboga) that they nerfed iboga and all druid pets. So if the pet damage is too significant it cause other problems. Like full support with damage (catalyst had this 'problem'). Well the AI will ruin it either way 😄
 

8 hours ago, Thornwolf.9721 said:

• Scourge did it
• mechanist has changed its core mechanic too
• spellbreaker and now bladesworn in a way

shroud vs shades, 2 totally different ability.
toolbelt vs mech, 2 totally different ability.
I'm not good with warrior but loose 1 bar to get an F2 is also not the same.

using reaper is better example:
shroud vs shroud. (well, ranged vs melee)

2 lower stat pet, but only 1 at the time vs 1 bigger stat pet with revive, basically you constantly has better stat and you loose... nothing.

P.S.: lion was shorter, than 'one big pet' 🙂 

[Thornwolf.9721]

9 hours ago, enkeny.6937 said:

I like your idea too, I just say, I don't feel it balanced, not compered to core ranger. (other professions don't has base pets to compared too)

1) the reversed hyena syndrome: do you ever use hyena? no? Well, because it has a summon ability, it's power is halved. The so called balance here is you have 2 hyena so half power will be the same. Expect, the summoned one not usually up! it disappear if you go far, when killed or when switching pet. But the cd is huge.
I feel your pet version is like merge the 2 pet into 1. So instead of to little you got one big. This trade will be ok, if both pet would be used in the same time. (like the hyena with it's skill up)

2) the druid problem: druid got pet stat nerfed, because over performing. As a pure support, the pet damage was so significant (with iboga) that they nerfed iboga and all druid pets. So if the pet damage is too significant it cause other problems. Like full support with damage (catalyst had this 'problem'). Well the AI will ruin it either way 😄
 

shroud vs shades, 2 totally different ability.
toolbelt vs mech, 2 totally different ability.
I'm not good with warrior but loose 1 bar to get an F2 is also not the same.

using reaper is better example:
shroud vs shroud. (well, ranged vs melee)

2 lower stat pet, but only 1 at the time vs 1 bigger stat pet with revive, basically you constantly has better stat and you loose... nothing.

P.S.: lion was shorter, than 'one big pet' 🙂 

I dont see how you dont loose something? You wouldn't likely get the same application of damage as you cant take it from a ranged pet to a melee pet for example. You can't take it as well to a utility pet from a dps pet. Once you choose your pet you're locked in and dedicated in that area of your build? 

Core can swap between two pet/two families and get two sets of completely different skills. You also might not be able to take advantage of some traits the same way such as the less call of the wild on pet swap or the quickness. It might convert to be something based on revive which might and likely would have a longer cooldown than swapping. 

In reality though I Really don't care, there is no such thing as balance in this game. Take a good look at harbinger and mechanist and tell me that they are in any form balanced right now? Both do more damage than any other spec and sacrifice next to nothing. 

~They could make it work; I honestly suspect loosing skills as well the ability to have two pets that you can take advantage of given specific situations would be enough of a trade off. But ultimately its not my job or place to decide where that line is; I also know A-net would never do this as its too much work. It would require quite a bit of effort which is something at least in terms of class design that they clearly don't care or worry about.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

11 hours ago, enkeny.6937 said:

If you read some beta report, having unleash a 10 sec cd was a huge issue. synergy with traits (loosing the +25% damage will hurt), and hammer in its current form will be useless. 
I'm mostly agree the other parts, but they can be more suitable solutions. (no need teleport, just improve the ai.)

 

That is correct, in its normal state having unleash as a 10s CD was unworkable. 

In this context though we're changing it to the single more powerful pet idea, so unleashing will work more like soulbeast merging / unmerging (except in this case it is power transfer instead of merge), so it seems natural to have the CD line up the same as the soulbeasts does.   

Along the AI front, I don't think they can improve it at this point.  I think the mech (if it has better AI, havent tried it) was a new creation so even that isn't 1 to 1 with ranger pets.  From what I understand ranger pets are more deeply tied into normal PvE creature AI and changing that would be difficult.  Which is why more new pets use teleports (smokescale, white tiger, etc.)--so having a teleport as a baseline wouldn't be a bad idea.  

[enkeny.6937]

54 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

 

That is correct, in its normal state having unleash as a 10s CD was unworkable. 

In this context though we're changing it to the single more powerful pet idea, so unleashing will work more like soulbeast merging / unmerging (except in this case it is power transfer instead of merge), so it seems natural to have the CD line up the same as the soulbeasts does.   

Along the AI front, I don't think they can improve it at this point.  I think the mech (if it has better AI, havent tried it) was a new creation so even that isn't 1 to 1 with ranger pets.  From what I understand ranger pets are more deeply tied into normal PvE creature AI and changing that would be difficult.  Which is why more new pets use teleports (smokescale, white tiger, etc.)--so having a teleport as a baseline wouldn't be a bad idea.  

Ok, I misinterpreted. Both the concept and the teleport, I thought teleport as an auto attack.

[enkeny.6937]

2 hours ago, Thornwolf.9721 said:

I dont see how you dont loose something? You wouldn't likely get the same application of damage as you cant take it from a ranged pet to a melee pet for example. You can't take it as well to a utility pet from a dps pet. Once you choose your pet you're locked in and dedicated in that area of your build? 

I see now. You think it is less flexible if you only has 1 pet. Thant's correct.
Usually pet worth so less, then expect f2 effect, it doesn't matter. birds and cats has high crit rate, so it will trigger more traits. Most case the second pet is either for cc or just back up for dead pet. So I was just thinking 2 average pets, one at a time vs one boosted pet.

[Thornwolf.9721]

1 hour ago, enkeny.6937 said:

I see now. You think it is less flexible if you only has 1 pet. Thant's correct.
Usually pet worth so less, then expect f2 effect, it doesn't matter. birds and cats has high crit rate, so it will trigger more traits. Most case the second pet is either for cc or just back up for dead pet. So I was just thinking 2 average pets, one at a time vs one boosted pet.

yes, which is the trade off that you're taking. You loose your flexibility and utility and have to choose based on where your build lacks; Be it utility or damage.