Allow Soulbeasts to swap Pets in combat again

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

1 minute ago, Project exa.3204 said:

Honestly it was for the best. As much as I loved being able to completely change the way my build worked mid-combat, it was not necessary (as evidenced by SB still being strong). For PvP at least, the ability to basically change your build mid combat depending on what you're fighting was a huge advantage over core / druid, and many other classes.

-Eros of Ascalon

You're changing 4 things. The small stat boost you get, and your F1-F3- if the F1-F3 is so impactful, why haven't they all been nerfed to hell and back? You know pvpers would be generating enough salt to make the world's largest French fry if it was that important.

[Project exa.3204]

1 minute ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

You're changing 4 things. The small stat boost you get, and your F1-F3- if the F1-F3 is so impactful, why haven't they all been nerfed to hell and back? You know pvpers would be generating enough salt to make the world's largest French fry if it was that important.

 

The small stat boost is sometimes all you need for an edge when you figure out what your enemies are playing. The pet skills can be incredibly useful, but there are only a few pets that really get attention. Bristleback was nerfed to hell. Gazelle got nearly a 50% nerf on its coeficients. Smokescale was nerfed twice. Drake only just got nerfed recently. Other pets with high coefficients (like Tiger, Hawk, Jacaranda, some canines) have never been picked up but probably will in the future.

 

As an example for what I mean on changing the dynamic of a fight, I'd stay on smokescale most of the time when I'm playing power--but if I start fighting power heavy users (reapers, spellbreakers, other soulbeasts, etc) I'd switch to siamoth, and the toughness / invul / charge / bite was usually enough to even things out or beat them.

-Eros of Ascalon

[voltaicbore.8012]

When soulbeasts could still swap and before resistance was reworked, my berserker amulet Sic 'Em soulbeast could just bring Jacaranda on swap. That gave me two more heals, with the f3 heal also being aoe and granting resistance. It was an immense amount of sustain, and it severely reduced the cost of playing aggressively. It also doesn't hurt that unmerged, the Jacaranda is a decent combat pet in certain scenarios.

The owl was another popular mid-battle swap choice. Instead of 2 heals like the Jacaranda, you "only" have one heal - but it's the same f3 heal as the Jacaranda (area heal + resistance). In place of losing 1 of the 2 possible extra heals, the owl grants a 1200 range leap, which in many ways is much more valuable than a heal.

So yes, losing mid-combat pet swap was a serious reduction in soulbeast flexibility. I just don't think the spec needed that nerf, relative to what it was attempting to compete against.

[anduriell.6280]

On 5/21/2022 at 4:52 PM, AlexndrTheGreat.8310 said:

Sounds like your misunderstanding the reason for removing pet swap.

Intent for elite specs is that you have some kind of trade off for taking an elite compared to playing the base class. This is to prevent the elite spec from being just a Base Class Plus, where it can do everything the base class does plus more.

Soulbeast lost pet swap because otherwise it would just be base Ranger but even better with access to two pets on top of two different Beastmode forms. *Not* to dumb the spec down so more people can play it like you’re implying.

Same thing can apply to Druid. Yes the 20% pet nerf sucks for Druid, but otherwise it would just be Base Ranger in addition to Celestial Avatar (again, Base Class Plus).

It does not change the fact the elite was designed around of being able to swap pets in mid fight, without the annoyance of having to go in and out. I don't know what they saw at the end testing phase which made them change that at the last minute. Probably some bug or something. 

The tradeoff of the soulbeast is losing the pet when they merge. That is and should be enough trade-off. 

If the pets wouldn't been kept pushed down so much because PvP it would be enough tradeoff. It is just so the pet mechanic is so nerfed in favor of petless classes which make them feel useless in most situations and even detrimental in some (like trying to stealth your team).   

[enkeny.6937]

On 5/26/2022 at 4:26 PM, Levetty.1279 said:

Imagine thinking this is an acceptable trade off for having 3 skills replaced with 15 better skills and access to a trait that keeps the passives when on CD. 

 

Its like some people want Guardian to dominate every mode.

15 skills and loose your weapon skills while using it, 
keeps it passive because a grandmaster trait. 
the grandmaster trait is optional (yes, it is better than the other 2) 
loosing weapon skills, as a druid I know, it can be painful. 
 

[enkeny.6937]

12 hours ago, anduriell.6280 said:

It does not change the fact the elite was designed around of being able to swap pets in mid fight, without the annoyance of having to go in and out. I don't know what they saw at the end testing phase which made them change that at the last minute. Probably some bug or something. 

The tradeoff of the soulbeast is losing the pet when they merge. That is and should be enough trade-off. 

If the pets wouldn't been kept pushed down so much because PvP it would be enough tradeoff. It is just so the pet mechanic is so nerfed in favor of petless classes which make them feel useless in most situations and even detrimental in some (like trying to stealth your team).   

as I said before:
the trade off of the merged abilities (and traits variants) are loosing the pet.
but the trade off of the ability to merge is the pet swap. 

if you get an ability (for free), you can choose you use it or not. 
if you change your ability (pet swap) to another ability (merge), that is the trade off.

 

[enkeny.6937]

On 5/26/2022 at 11:14 PM, AlexndrTheGreat.8310 said:

It was also pointed out early in Untamed’s reveal that they don’t *really* have a trade off. Only thing different is that your pet won’t auto cast some of their abilities, but to manually cast them yourself isnt really considered a trade off. Untamed is an elite that simply stacked more mechanics on top of the Base Ranger and nothing was actually taken away. I remember other people on the forums criticizing the Untamed design because of that.

For many players (like me 🙂 ) it is a trade off, but yes technically it is not. Unleashed Power doesn't has anything that is a loose of trade. But don't worry we will get one sooner or later 😄 

[Abyssisis.3971]

7 hours ago, enkeny.6937 said:

as I said before:
the trade off of the merged abilities (and traits variants) are loosing the pet.
but the trade off of the ability to merge is the pet swap. 

if you get an ability (for free), you can choose you use it or not. 
if you change your ability (pet swap) to another ability (merge), that is the trade off.

 

So why does soulbeast need 2 trade offs if we go by what you are saying?

 

 

[BatelGeuce.3591]

Anet, I beg you, do not listen to any of the suggestions made in this thread.

[enkeny.6937]

3 hours ago, Abyssisis.3971 said:

So why does soulbeast need 2 trade offs if we go by what you are saying?

ok, I try a different approach:

there are 3 people
Alice has 1 has a fork
Bob has a spoon
Cecil has both a fork and a spoon
they can use only 1 item at a time

So Cecil can do anything that Bob or Alice can do
that means Cecil is better than Bob or Alice

but what about Bob and Alice? which one is better?
Alice can pierce, Bob has better chance against a soup.
they are not better than to other they are just different.

So you say, if you trade the spoon for a fork, because you can't eat soup it wasn't a fair trade. You say the fair trade is that you keep both. 

[Lysico.4906]

Dude. Soulbeast is a spork.  You don’t need to swap pet’s 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

On 5/23/2022 at 10:19 PM, Levetty.1279 said:

What is Firebrand's trade off?

Action economy apparently...

[Abyssisis.3971]

1 hour ago, enkeny.6937 said:

ok, I try a different approach:

there are 3 people
Alice has 1 has a fork
Bob has a spoon
Cecil has both a fork and a spoon
they can use only 1 item at a time

So Cecil can do anything that Bob or Alice can do
that means Cecil is better than Bob or Alice

but what about Bob and Alice? which one is better?
Alice can pierce, Bob has better chance against a soup.
they are not better than to other they are just different.

So you say, if you trade the spoon for a fork, because you can't eat soup it wasn't a fair trade. You say the fair trade is that you keep both. 

You can eat/drink soup without a spoon.. you drink it directly from the bowl lol

Now back to what you said “if you get an ability (for free), you can choose you use it or not. 
if you change your ability (pet swap) to another ability (merge), that is the trade off.”

Merging swapped pet skills, pet swap and us being able to command pets to fight for us with their skills and abilities for merged abilities. By your own words that’s a trade off. Removal of pet swap from the elite spec was just anet caving to years of pressure from players from other classes complaining that soulbeasts didn’t have a real trade off, when it did.

Edited May 31, 2022 by Abyssisis.3971

[Infinity.2876]

Is like to be able to swap pets for 2 reasons

1: versitile state increase I can swap between a tank pet who gives me defense stats to a pet who gives offense stats this would be purely a trade off kind of like virtue 1 or 3 for firebrand

2: different skill options defensive and offensive see above

Swapping pets would not refresh the already insanely long cool down to merge and would force you to exit beasties if you are in it when you swap.

The problem is most people use smoke scale which is both tanky has lot of damage and gives its owner evades.

[enkeny.6937]

24 minutes ago, Abyssisis.3971 said:

You can eat/drink soup without a spoon.. you drink it directly from the bowl lol

Now back to what you said “if you get an ability (for free), you can choose you use it or not. 
if you change your ability (pet swap) to another ability (merge), that is the trade off.”

Merging swapped pet skills, pet swap and us being able to command pets to fight for us with their skills and abilities for merged abilities. By your own words that’s a trade off. Removal of pet swap from the elite spec was just anet caving to years of pressure from players from other classes complaining that soulbeasts didn’t have a real trade off, when it did.

Get something for every core necro please, they trade off the weapon skills while in shroud
remove the pet nerf from druid because trade off the weapons skills while in celestial avatar form.
get the engineer weapon swap if there are no kit equipped....

Then why not give reapers the reaper shroud on f2? so they can access death shroud in f1 and reaper shroud on f2, they can't be in both form at the same time. reaper shroud consumes life force faster so there are already a trade off.
Technically reapers lost an ability to enter death shroud and get the ability to enter reaper shroud. so soulbeast lost an ability to switch pet to get an ability merge pets. 

[anduriell.6280]

18 hours ago, enkeny.6937 said:

as I said before:
the trade off of the merged abilities (and traits variants) are loosing the pet.
but the trade off of the ability to merge is the pet swap. 

if you get an ability (for free), you can choose you use it or not. 
if you change your ability (pet swap) to another ability (merge), that is the trade off.

 

Ok i see the campaign going again into nerfing ranger once again from people that hate the class like every single time a balance is announced. You should have stated your position from the beginning . My guess this is main thief or alike. 

Now let's talk like we are adults: 

• What is a pet mechanically: A pet is a ranged single target homing attack. Which means a pet is supposed to reach farther and allow the ranger to multitask.  Yehyeh the implementation is terrible and it doesn't work most of the time but the idea was this. 
• What is the tradeoff of the soulbeast: It loses the pet. It looses that ranged homing attack which works independently from the player actions and cooldowns. It is inline of other classes tradeoffs and even there are some which do not have any like the holo or the deadeye. 
• For the 3 additional skill gained the  soulbeast loses the pet's 3 autonomous skills. And the soulbeast skills are lesser versions of the pet one, there is another tradeoff. 
• The archetype skills do not compensate the fact those skills are very wimpy, in fact normal skills are sometimes more effective than the archetype skills: Maul > WI for example. 
• So after this I think is clear: There is not real reason why the soulbeast should not be able to swap pets even while merged. All the technical stuff is already there. Maybe some devs with no understanding or even love for the class thought it was ok but it is not.  As i've been saying for many years now: Ranger needs a dev who plays and loves the class and freedom to do what is needed. And it needs quite a lot. 

So soulbeast just by merging not only losing the reach, range and autonomous attacks from the pet, but also exchange those by lesser versions much less effective. 

Soulbeast may be nerfed further in the next patch thou but it will not be because it is unbalanced as the class hasn't been really touched until now and is not even meta or very common in any gamemode,  but because Anet may want to push an unplayable new elite which nobody likes and that may be the only way they mistakenly think, to do the Druid treatment. 

Yeyeh i get it you don't like being pewpewd nobody does. But unplayed in just that,  unplayable. I suggest instead pushing further nerfs on the only playable elite of this class to use your time to ask for the rework of that garbage tier elite so ranger mains can stop playing with the same LB/GS build from 9 year ago. 

[enkeny.6937]

2 hours ago, anduriell.6280 said:

Ok i see the campaign going again into nerfing ranger once again from people that hate the class like every single time a balance is announced. You should have stated your position from the beginning . My guess this is main thief or alike. 

Now let's talk like we are adults: 

• What is a pet mechanically: A pet is a ranged single target homing attack. Which means a pet is supposed to reach farther and allow the ranger to multitask.  Yehyeh the implementation is terrible and it doesn't work most of the time but the idea was this. 
• What is the tradeoff of the soulbeast: It loses the pet. It looses that ranged homing attack which works independently from the player actions and cooldowns. It is inline of other classes tradeoffs and even there are some which do not have any like the holo or the deadeye. 
• For the 3 additional skill gained the  soulbeast loses the pet's 3 autonomous skills. And the soulbeast skills are lesser versions of the pet one, there is another tradeoff. 
• The archetype skills do not compensate the fact those skills are very wimpy, in fact normal skills are sometimes more effective than the archetype skills: Maul > WI for example. 
• So after this I think is clear: There is not real reason why the soulbeast should not be able to swap pets even while merged. All the technical stuff is already there. Maybe some devs with no understanding or even love for the class thought it was ok but it is not.  As i've been saying for many years now: Ranger needs a dev who plays and loves the class and freedom to do what is needed. And it needs quite a lot. 

So soulbeast just by merging not only losing the reach, range and autonomous attacks from the pet, but also exchange those by lesser versions much less effective. 

Soulbeast may be nerfed further in the next patch thou but it will not be because it is unbalanced as the class hasn't been really touched until now and is not even meta or very common in any gamemode,  but because Anet may want to push an unplayable new elite which nobody likes and that may be the only way they mistakenly think, to do the Druid treatment. 

Yeyeh i get it you don't like being pewpewd nobody does. But unplayed in just that,  unplayable. I suggest instead pushing further nerfs on the only playable elite of this class to use your time to ask for the rework of that garbage tier elite so ranger mains can stop playing with the same LB/GS build from 9 year ago. 

I would agree you if and only if the soulbeast mechanic would be the constantly merged state. If the soulbeast cannot unmerge with the pet, than the pet swap would be necessary. You can use your pet as range dot as you write here, you are not forced to merge. if the pet dies, yes you need to wait 5 more sec to res it while you get some skills and stat for that duration.
but it is still shorter then a core ranger, to swap back to its original pet. (if your iboga dies, you have to wait 45 or 60 sec to use it again)

What you don't want to see is: soulbeast is not a petless specialisation. 
It just trade its second pet to a merge state. Is the merge state is better, worse or equal than another pet? That is a different question.

Soulbeast is now pretty balanced. Not an over the top dps, but not a "bring a normal dps class, please" state either. it can be top dps, can do both condition and strike damage. has dps support to the group. In PvE at least.

I use soulbeast with unmerge pet. when you solo fractals it is a good help, can share my stances with it, and tank for me a bit. 
soulbeast pets can actually can tank better, because you can use stout pets and become invincible for the duration your pet is not active. 

[enkeny.6937]

3 hours ago, anduriell.6280 said:

For the 3 additional skill gained the  soulbeast loses the pet's 3 autonomous skills. And the soulbeast skills are lesser versions of the pet one, there is another tradeoff. 

did you count the stat difference too? Some are really less useful, like harmonious cry, but usually you has better critical chance, more critical damage, more power, more condition damage and expertise. So for example maul is way better in ranger then a feline version.

[Abyssisis.3971]

13 hours ago, enkeny.6937 said:

Get something for every core necro please, they trade off the weapon skills while in shroud
remove the pet nerf from druid because trade off the weapons skills while in celestial avatar form.
get the engineer weapon swap if there are no kit equipped....

Then why not give reapers the reaper shroud on f2? so they can access death shroud in f1 and reaper shroud on f2, they can't be in both form at the same time. reaper shroud consumes life force faster so there are already a trade off.
Technically reapers lost an ability to enter death shroud and get the ability to enter reaper shroud. so soulbeast lost an ability to switch pet to get an ability merge pets. 

Death shroud and reaper shroud is the same mechanic, you just get different skills. The trade off was reaper shroud consumed life force faster over core’s death shroud, which is only the case for pve and wvw since death shroud was nerfed to 5% per second in pvp.

Soulbeast’s trade off was when merging, you lost access to your pet and everything it provided while fighting beside you. We couldn’t merge and have a pet fighting with it, it was one or the other, not both at the same time. 

Edited June 1, 2022 by Abyssisis.3971

[enkeny.6937]

7 hours ago, Abyssisis.3971 said:

Soulbeast’s trade off was when merging, you lost access to your pet and everything it provided while fighting beside you. We couldn’t merge and have a pet fighting with it, it was one or the other, not both at the same time. 

"Soulbeast’s trade off was when merging..." at this point, soulbeast do something core ranger can't.
"We couldn’t merge and have a pet fighting with it" was there a time when you fought with both of you pets?

in my evaluation:
1 - core ranger has pat A, pet B (2 mode) 
2 -soulbest now has pet A, merge A (2 mode)
3 -soulbeast(previously) has pet A, pet B, merge A merge B (4 mode)
4 - an early concept for soulbeast has merge A, merge B (2 mode)

For most case I think I argue with people, who think soulbeast is the 4th case. yes, the current meta is always in merge, but it doesn't mean you lost your pet entirely. 

The only one, who is above the others is the previous soulbeast. 
You just need to answer a simple question: can the elite specialisation do the everything and more then the core (in class mechanics)? If the answer is yes, then something is not good.
If soulbeast has pet swap and not using merge, what is the difference? 
It has the same pets (stats, abilities, cooldowns), the same controls, the same cooldowns (switch).
expect, you still has the option to merge, if you secound pet is die too, then you can revive it in 5 sec instead 45 sec. 

[Sahne.6950]

On 5/30/2022 at 1:44 PM, anduriell.6280 said:

The tradeoff of the soulbeast is losing the pet when they merge. That is and should be enough trade-off. 

plottwist... actually being able to "stow away" your pet is actuall the opposite of a tradeoff... you can revive your pet at any given point in time... While core or any other rangerspec has to wait 50 seconds for the pet to respawn....

!!!NEWSFLASH!!!! pets can and will die!

[Abyssisis.3971]

2 hours ago, enkeny.6937 said:

"Soulbeast’s trade off was when merging..." at this point, soulbeast do something core ranger can't.
"We couldn’t merge and have a pet fighting with it" was there a time when you fought with both of you pets?

in my evaluation:
1 - core ranger has pat A, pet B (2 mode) 
2 -soulbest now has pet A, merge A (2 mode)
3 -soulbeast(previously) has pet A, pet B, merge A merge B (4 mode)
4 - an early concept for soulbeast has merge A, merge B (2 mode)

For most case I think I argue with people, who think soulbeast is the 4th case. yes, the current meta is always in merge, but it doesn't mean you lost your pet entirely. 

The only one, who is above the others is the previous soulbeast. 
You just need to answer a simple question: can the elite specialisation do the everything and more then the core (in class mechanics)? If the answer is yes, then something is not good.
If soulbeast has pet swap and not using merge, what is the difference? 
It has the same pets (stats, abilities, cooldowns), the same controls, the same cooldowns (switch).
expect, you still has the option to merge, if you secound pet is die too, then you can revive it in 5 sec instead 45 sec. 

And it’s no different than say daredevil having an extra dodge over core thief, while maintaining swipe at a shorter range… or tempest gaining the ability to overload its attunements, while off the top of my head I can’t even think of what is trade off is, unless it’s having an increased attunement cooldown when overloading? At least when soulbeasts merged, they actually lost something in order to gain something.

Yes, there was a time I would fight with both pets, obviously not at the same time, but I had the option of swapping out my pets depending on what I needed or merging with one of them.

And so what is soulbeast could do everything core could, and have the option to merge, it still had a trade off when merging… 🤦‍♂️
 

Why does ranger need a downside for pets dying? Does any other class have a downside to their class mechanic? 

 

 

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

4 hours ago, Abyssisis.3971 said:

And it’s no different than say daredevil having an extra dodge over core thief, while maintaining swipe at a shorter range… or tempest gaining the ability to overload its attunements, while off the top of my head I can’t even think of what is trade off is, unless it’s having an increased attunement cooldown when overloading? At least when soulbeasts merged, they actually lost something in order to gain something.

Yes, there was a time I would fight with both pets, obviously not at the same time, but I had the option of swapping out my pets depending on what I needed or merging with one of them.

And so what is soulbeast could do everything core could, and have the option to merge, it still had a trade off when merging… 🤦‍♂️
 

Why does ranger need a downside for pets dying? Does any other class have a downside to their class mechanic? 

 

 

Rev kind of does in general due to the energy mechanic, I guess you could argue necro as well (although it has a much better and easier energy system to manage)

 

I can understand the increased pet swap cooldown for reviving, but with soulbeast if you remove the heal on merge the downside is having no pet to help you while merged. Just removing healing on merge makes soulbeast a lot better to play because you can still use the 'toolbelt' aspect of ranger.

[Abyssisis.3971]

12 hours ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

Rev kind of does in general due to the energy mechanic, I guess you could argue necro as well (although it has a much better and easier energy system to manage)

 

I can understand the increased pet swap cooldown for reviving, but with soulbeast if you remove the heal on merge the downside is having no pet to help you while merged. Just removing healing on merge makes soulbeast a lot better to play because you can still use the 'toolbelt' aspect of ranger.

So when revs run out of energy due to poor management are they slapped with an extended cooldown on legends swapping. No, they aren't, they just swap legends and get energy back. Same with core nerco/reaper, when their life force is depleted, they aren’t hit with any negative downside to the shroud mechanic, they regain it life force by whatever means and can reenter shroud when it comes off cooldown. Ranger loses its pet in combat and is slapped with a minutes cooldown on it being usable again. 🤔

[enkeny.6937]

Oh, I have forgotten there is one more possibility: if we get pet swap for soulbeast, it will shares the cooldown with the merge. I think it is terrible, but at least I write this option. (so for example: your pet is dead, then if you merge or switch you can't unmerge or switch for 60 sec) it is a variant of no.3 so it has still 4 modes 

18 hours ago, Abyssisis.3971 said:

And it’s no different than say daredevil having an extra dodge over core thief, while maintaining swipe at a shorter range… or tempest gaining the ability to overload its attunements, while off the top of my head I can’t even think of what is trade off is, unless it’s having an increased attunement cooldown when overloading? At least when soulbeasts merged, they actually lost something in order to gain something.

If you say it is no different the thief getting swipe for stealing as merge for pet swap, than you may start getting the point. 
If you just want to say, there are other specialisations with better trade-off, yes there is, rangers in most case are the average, so ~ 4 professions better, ~4 professions worse. 
But still, crying for others being better is not mean we are not good. 
 

19 hours ago, Abyssisis.3971 said:

Yes, there was a time I would fight with both pets, obviously not at the same time, but I had the option of swapping out my pets depending on what I needed or merging with one of them.

want to use 2 pet, obviously not at the same time, than it is simple! just don't use soulbeast e-spec, there is untamed, core, maybe druid, but druid's pets are... not the best. And before you asked "why should I choose different specialisation?" that is how the trade-off system should work. "but there are case where it is different!" yes, the system is not perfect, there are some minor -maybe major- problems here and there, but don't forget, we care! - by the Inquest. 😉 

 

19 hours ago, Abyssisis.3971 said:

Why does ranger need a downside for pets dying? Does any other class have a downside to their class mechanic? 

Not this extreme. I mean death shroud duration can be reduced by damage, clone can be killed. 
I want an answer too, it is way too long cd now.Aa dead pet switch cd is about an elite skills cd, back in the days it was even worse, because the pet died for almost every 2 AoE damage (well the elite skills cooldowns were ~double at the time). Now in PvE the pet hardly dies in group, but seriously, can we get cd reduction, death penalty remove, pet revive on at least 1 (core) heal skill (depend on game mode it revive with different health).