The reason untamed "sucks"

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

Is that it does not feel or play out like ranger, or a medium armor class for that matter.

In my humble opinion and experience, medium classes are the most "improvisation"-heavy classes out there. Their playstyle resolves less around common-man rotations and specific skill sequences than heavy and particularly light armor classes. This is most heavily evident in thief, but ranger isn't far off.

Now, this wouldn't be such an issue if untamed fulfilled some other role (akin to what specter does for thief - alac and ranged caster condi) - but it's literally competing for the same spot as soulbeast. And soulbeast isn't trying to mimic an elementalist playstyle for a class that cannot support such, for both mechanical (pet) as well as flow (above) reasons.

TL;DR: The untamed is a mess because it strays too far from ranger's core identity while competing with another in-class elite specialization, aka not brining anything new to the table.

[BadSanta.6527]

well i think untame was supposed to be unfun 

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

3 hours ago, BadSanta.6527 said:

well i think untame was supposed to be unfun 

Downvoters seem to be enjoying it. How, I don't exactly see; which is why I'd like to see some form of comment.

Edited April 16, 2022 by NorthernRedStar.3054

[Beddo.1907]

4 hours ago, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

The untamed is a mess because it strays too far from ranger's core identity while competing with another in-class elite specialization, aka not brining anything new to the table.

This is actually the most ranger espec out of all 3 since it's the only spec that focuses on the core mechanic rather than trading off it's power or swapping it for another mechanic. (also sorting class roles by armor class is meaningless) 

But the other part is correct: nothing new that makes the espec as good or better than previous ones or other classes.

It's just an espec with no point and a bunch of mechanics tied by uncooked spaghetti and dark green glitterglue.

[Mell.4873]

5 hours ago, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

TL;DR: The untamed is a mess because it strays too far from ranger's core identity while competing with another in-class elite specialization, aka not brining anything new to the table.

I agree with everything you said before but this is blatantly wrong, the reason Soulbeast is so strong is because it isn't a Ranger anymore since you merge with you pet to do massive burst damage with primarily sic em. 

Untamed is a more tank core ranger, it might not have the damage of even core (hopefully we see a fix for that) but it has improved the base ranger kit rather than removing it like Soulbeast did. 

To add to my point Untamed in PvP is fine and frequently appear in plat (like myself)

Edited April 16, 2022 by Mell.4873

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

4 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

I agree with everything you said before but this is blatantly wrong, the reason Soulbeast is so strong is because it isn't a Ranger anymore since you merge with you pet to do massive burst damage with primarily sic em. 

Untamed is a more tank core ranger, it might not have the damage of even core (hopefully we see a fix for that) but it has improved the base ranger kit rather than removing it like Soulbeast did. 

Perhaps the the correct term would've been 'fundamental base'. The way I'm trying angle it here is, ranger's (and other medium classes') "complexity" and skill cap come from how they set up their moves and interact with enemies (including other players). For me, that includes the pet and how it adds into that situational awareness + adjustment ability.

Hence, why I ended up using 'core identity' - I didn't consider pet ranger's 'core identity' but, rather, one of the cogs that form it.

Edited April 16, 2022 by NorthernRedStar.3054

[Mell.4873]

18 minutes ago, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

Perhaps the the correct term would've been 'fundamental base'. The way I'm trying angle it here is, ranger's (and other medium classes') "complexity" and skill cap come from how they set up their moves and interact with enemies (including other players). For me, that includes the pet and how it adds into that situational awareness + adjustment ability.

Hence, why I ended up using 'core identity' - I didn't consider pet ranger's 'core identity' but, rather, one of the cogs that form it.

Okay that I do agree with 🙂

Ranger does have a bit of an identity crisis and really just needs the spirit rework to clearly define its role in this game.

I mean a 25 might, quickness Druid could take the tilte of best support in some scenarios over Healbrand. 

Edited April 17, 2022 by Mell.4873

[Gotejjeken.1267]

I dunno--I'd consider pets to be pretty fundamental to ranger's 'core', as only soulbeast 'removes' them.  Core suffers from them because it has to, druid uses them for CC, and untamed relies the most on them for the unleashed effects.  

I do think Untamed has the most potential if they fix a few things.  It does bring a lot of AoE CC that  the other ranger specs do not, and really only suffers from the pet AI and it's ability to be nuked rather easily.  They could solve the nuking part with making the downed CD for pets more like 15 seconds instead of 60.  

Spirit rework seems interesting, but not getting hopes up too much based on past spirit nerfs.  That and its yet more support stuff that I really don't see why ranger needs--and again Druid had and was also nerfed.  So this 'rework' is more like a reversing of some of those nerfs and adding some alacrity in to please the power creep crowd.  

[Lazze.9870]

10 hours ago, Beddo.1907 said:

This is actually the most ranger espec out of all 3 since it's the only spec that focuses on the core mechanic rather than trading off it's power or swapping it for another mechanic. (also sorting class roles by armor class is meaningless) 

No ranger elite spec "swaps it for another mechanic".

One has a nerfed version, another has no pet swap for the ability to merge. And then you have the untamed mess.

Swapping it for another mechanic would be if druid had no pet and was all about the avatar, or if soulbeast was permamerged and swapped between two pet souls instead of merge and unmerge.

Untamed keeps everything the core mechanic has, but the pet mechanic itself is still fundamentally the same on all three specs.

Edited April 17, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[Lazze.9870]

1 hour ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

dunno--I'd consider pets to be pretty fundamental to ranger's 'core', as only soulbeast 'removes' them

People need to stop using the word "remove", because that's not what soulbeast does, that's simply the way soulbeast is played in pve. 

I use my smokescale the same way on core and soulbeast, until I swap it out or merge with it.

 

[Gotejjeken.1267]

13 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

People need to stop using the word "remove", because that's not what soulbeast does, that's simply the way soulbeast is played in pve. 

I use my smokescale the same way on core and soulbeast, until I swap it out or merge with it.

 

 

That's why the word removed is in quotes 🙂.  

I personally never unmerge even in a competitive setting; I do WvW so unmerging for one smoke field isn't usually enough for me--and I rather take a versatile pet anyway.  I guess the overall point is you are essentially stronger while merged and only lose access to a single F2, so might as well just say the pet is 'removed' since it is entirely auxiliary.  

[Mell.4873]

21 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

People need to stop using the word "remove", because that's not what soulbeast does, that's simply the way soulbeast is played in pve. 

I use my smokescale the same way on core and soulbeast, until I swap it out or merge with it.

 

I think it's more that the primary use of case of Soulbeast is to merge with your pet for a stat buff and Command utilities.

I mean the only reason to unmerge like you have stated is to use your pets F2 skill and that's it. 

[Lazze.9870]

11 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

That's why the word removed is in quotes 🙂.  

I personally never unmerge even in a competitive setting; I do WvW so unmerging for one smoke field isn't usually enough for me--and I rather take a versatile pet anyway.  I guess the overall point is you are essentially stronger while merged and only lose access to a single F2, so might as well just say the pet is 'removed' since it is entirely auxiliary.  

The thing is, it feeds into this notion that ranger already has a petless spec when it in reality only has a "petless" spec.

If you by WvW are excluding roaming and dueling, then sure, I'd run permamerged most of the time as well. As I also do in my guild runs. The pet is near useless for clouding, zerging, anything with more than.. 5 people.

Edited April 18, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[Lazze.9870]

3 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

I think it's more that the primary use of case of Soulbeast is to merge with your pet for a stat buff and Command utilities.

I know why people say it.

3 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

mean the only reason to unmerge like you have stated is to use your pets F2 skill and that's it. 

That's it?

Pet CCs? Pet swap and merge traits? It depends entirely on what you're doing and the build you're playing.

Yes, you can play it permamerged, you often want to. But no, the F2 is not the "only" reason to unmerge.

This is basic kitten.

Edited April 18, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[Mell.4873]

19 minutes ago, Lazze.9870 said:

I know why people say it.

That's it?

Pet CCs? Pet swap and merge traits? It depends entirely on what you're doing and the build you're playing.

Yes, you can play it permamerged, you often want to. But no, the F2 is not the "only" reason to unmerge.

This is basic kitten.

I will agree with you for PvP but pets don't have much of use case in PvE except for there F2 since there is now way you tell the AI to cast its other abilities. I mean atleast Untamed lets you control them but they do bad damage in PvE.

Give use a split for Untamed, PvE unleashed pets have increased damage then PvP unleashed pets reduce incoming damage(like the currently do)

[Lazze.9870]

6 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

I will agree with you for PvP but pets don't have much of use case in PvE

I NEVER SAID IT HAD A USE IN PVE.

Does this forum has some kinda PvE default mindset where everything you say is all about PvE and nothing else matter? Shouldn't someone also tell me that I shouldn't be using the smokescale because there are pets with more damage?

Edited April 18, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[Mell.4873]

5 minutes ago, Lazze.9870 said:

I NEVER SAID IT HAD A USE IN PVE.

Does this forum has some kinda PvE default mindset where everything you say is all about PvE and nothing else matter? I'm suprised someone hasn't asked me why I'm using the smokescale, because that's not the highest damaging pet in PvE.

Oh then in that case I completely agree and to agree with you further when I play PvP on my Soulbeast I almost never merged and just used it to revive my pet.

Untamed in PvP is very strong at the moment, I have even gotten plat on it. I think most of complaints here are from the PvE side since i even stated early on the Untamed is fine PvP.

[Lazze.9870]

8 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

Untamed in PvP is very strong at the moment, I have even gotten plat on it

It's not very strong, it's fine. Worse than both core and soulbeast.

Any ranger spec can get to plat, that's not a seal of quality. I can drool around on druid and stay permanently in plat.

Edited April 18, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[wasss.1208]

On 4/17/2022 at 12:17 AM, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

Downvoters seem to be enjoying it. How, I don't exactly see; which is why I'd like to see some form of comment.

I'm not a downvoter, but I enjoy untamed greatly. Mostly for subjective reasons, because objectively I can see why it gets all the hatred.

Firstly, it uses a hammer. I'm a big sucker for hammer builds. Seeing my character pummeling their enemy into the ground just feels soo satisfying. In the past 6-8 months I played Scrapper almost exclusively, now I'm using Untamed mostly. Going to give Catalyst a try later. (I even have a support warrior equipped for WvW, despite that beign my least played profession.)

The fantasy of the spec is appealing to me. I always liked how in this game, the ranger can use melee weapons pretty well. From what I heard, Untamed is the GW2 reimagination of the bunnythumper build from GW1, which was a ranger-warrior hybrid, that used hammer to CC their enemies, while the pet did the damage. (Don't quote me on that, I did not play GW1 a lot, this what I was told.) If that is true, they really should give more damage to the pets, in PvE at least, so they are more than just an utility tool, and some free damage and projectilehate.

The rotation feels fast paced, yet simple. The whole thing is 8 seconds long, and all you have to use is 4 skills on a single weapon, the unleashing, 2 utilities, and 3 pet abilities. It is pretty self sufficent in open world, it doesn't really need alacrity, because of Fervent Force exists. The rotation has one crucial moment, where you need quickness for it to work. Funnily enough, traits give you quickness right on that spot. I'm going to say this now, and I am willing to die on this hill: Whoever designed Untamed knew what they are doing, and had a clear idea of what they want, and didn't just throw in random stuff, and see what sticks. (Outside of ambushes, those feel like an afterthought.)

In instanced content, you can do specific mechanics, with relatively small sacrefices (mostly because your damage is already low to begin with). You can slot in a spirit, trading off some ferocity, you can bring Entangle, because you don't have a damaging elite ability, and you have all the pets, with petswap, that core and druid has access to... and Spotter is always nice to have. (And yes, I know all of these are accessible to Soulbeast, while doing more damage. That is why I said that I can see objectively the issue with the spec.) On top of that, your whole damaging rotation is on a simple weapon set, so you can bring a second weapon set, to fill some specific purpose. In pug setting, self quickness, and the extra utilities help a lot, to deal with mechanics. In premade setting, people doesn't care about the lacking damage, because everything gets one-twoshot anyways.

Bonus points for the spec, for having superspeed on the new elite, and heal, and the heal lets me ignore mechanics. These helped a lot for me to get into Untamed, after Scrapper.

Tl;dr: the spec is viable, and that is enough for me. Also hammer goes brrrr.

[Mell.4873]

1 hour ago, Lazze.9870 said:

It's not very strong, it's fine. Worse than both core and soulbeast.

Any ranger spec can get to plat, that's not a seal of quality. I can drool around on druid and stay permanently in plat.

Its pretty hard to now days unless you get carried. I mean plat is the top 200 players right now (US). 

In that respect getting it on Untamed is an elite achievement. 

Edited April 18, 2022 by Mell.4873

[Eurantien.4632]

1 hour ago, Lazze.9870 said:

It's not very strong, it's fine. Worse than both core and soulbeast.

Any ranger spec can get to plat, that's not a seal of quality. I can drool around on druid and stay permanently in plat.

 

Untamed is the best iteration of ranger for PvP so far.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

5 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

The thing is, it feeds into this notion that ranger already has a petless spec when it in reality only has a "petless" spec.

If you by WvW are excluding roaming and dueling, then sure, I'd run permamerged most of the time as well. As I also do in my guild runs. The pet is near useless for clouding, zerging, anything with more than.. 5 people.

 

I mean yeah, I'd exclude dueling from most things as no matter what you are crafting specific dueling builds there.

For roaming, I still don't think there is much utility playing unmerged.  Even here we are speaking of unmerged being to unmerge and use a F2, get a trait off, or use a CC--that isn't really playing with the pet at all.  That's having another utility slot.

Essentially while the soulbeast isn't truly petless, it also doesn't use the pet at all for anything super substantial.  Also as mentioned before, most people use the pet for stats--so you don't want to unmerge or you're losing quite a lot for that one field or CC.  

[Puck.3697]

On 4/16/2022 at 7:28 PM, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

Is that it does not feel or play out like ranger, or a medium armor class for that matter.

In my humble opinion and experience, medium classes are the most "improvisation"-heavy classes out there. Their playstyle resolves less around common-man rotations and specific skill sequences than heavy and particularly light armor classes. This is most heavily evident in thief, but ranger isn't far off.

Now, this wouldn't be such an issue if untamed fulfilled some other role (akin to what specter does for thief - alac and ranged caster condi) - but it's literally competing for the same spot as soulbeast. And soulbeast isn't trying to mimic an elementalist playstyle for a class that cannot support such, for both mechanical (pet) as well as flow (above) reasons.

TL;DR: The untamed is a mess because it strays too far from ranger's core identity while competing with another in-class elite specialization, aka not brining anything new to the table.

Tbh. I think the problem is, untamed is rangers spellbreaker. It's built primarily for PvP. In a game where 80% of its audience only plays PvE. 

It does the PvP thing pretty well, I've seen some scarey untamed players in spvp but no one wants their new content to be only good in content they don't do. And quite rightly so. 

Although it does open world content pretty well, I've seen some videos of it and quite a few seem to say It can be insane at soloing challanges. 

- But yeah it's Pve damage is low. It has no unique boons it's other speccs can provide. It's another power DPS. 

- hammer feels weak in all game modes. 

And due to the above. 

It's F5 mechanic feels like nothing changes. 

I think personally F5 and hammer need reworking. It's fine for soulbeast and untamed to simultaneously exist. Because: 

It effectively says "do you want a pet or do u not want a pet" which expands the audience it can apply to. 

Ontop of that things such as open world content you want your pet. And untamed offers that without a DPS loss unlike soulbeast. 

Its just F5 and hammer is a let down imho. If they severely improve the conditions of those 2 things I think untamed could be a amazing specc. 

But we will see in June if Anet are going to do anything major concerning the EoD elites which didn't lift off aswell as others. 

 

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

9 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

Tbh. I think the problem is, untamed is rangers spellbreaker. It's built primarily for PvP. In a game where 80% of its audience only plays PvE. 

It does the PvP thing pretty well, I've seen some scarey untamed players in spvp but no one wants their new content to be only good in content they don't do. And quite rightly so. 

Although it does open world content pretty well, I've seen some videos of it and quite a few seem to say It can be insane at soloing challanges. 

- But yeah it's Pve damage is low. It has no unique boons it's other speccs can provide. It's another power DPS. 

- hammer feels weak in all game modes. 

And due to the above. 

It's F5 mechanic feels like nothing changes. 

I think personally F5 and hammer need reworking. It's fine for soulbeast and untamed to simultaneously exist. Because: 

It effectively says "do you want a pet or do u not want a pet" which expands the audience it can apply to. 

Ontop of that things such as open world content you want your pet. And untamed offers that without a DPS loss unlike soulbeast. 

Its just F5 and hammer is a let down imho. If they severely improve the conditions of those 2 things I think untamed could be a amazing specc. 

But we will see in June if Anet are going to do anything major concerning the EoD elites which didn't lift off aswell as others. 

 

I honestly wish both untamed and spellbreaker weren't 'pvp specs'- they're really the only 2. If there were more across all professions it might sit better with me, but even during my 2 years of playing prior to EoD spellbreaker being a 'pvp spec' never sat well with me.

 

Hope the ranger spirit and warrior quickness changes also have untamed and spellbreaker receive reworks worth using in PvE. Untamed specifically could benefit from stat sharing (if mechanist gets such insane flexibility and strength as both a support and DPS, ranger can get a pet central DPS that does nothing else in particular. Come on anet, as much as I like soulbeast I'd love to hit hard with a drake or moa! You even admitted nobody uses moas- now is the chance!)

[Xervite.5493]

Bland traits and the hammer killed it for me. Can we please delete hammer and replace it with spear already? But tbf it is a really solid solo spec for open world or anything pve really, I find myself picking untamed when my Slb nuke just doesn't cut it. Yeah I never use hammer and never will. And It sucks that unleash has such a powerful synergy with only one weapon.