Improving Untamed for WvW

[Acyk.9671]

Hello guys,

 

Since Untamed fails to meet the expectations we had for Ranger in WvW, I had an idea for a rework i would like you to consider.  I want to reduce the reliance of that specialization on the link  between F5 and ambushes by changing the mechanic without touching too much the gameplay.

 

1/ Unleashed Ambushes:

 

Now works on weapon swap instead of F5, adjusting the CD to 9sec.

 

2/ F5:

 

Make it work so it still affects cantrip utilities and traits but not ambushes.

Make it a kit that gives access to  the 4 "Unleashed Hammer" skills regardless of the weapon set equipped and not just hammer. It gives more options in melee and we don't have to worry about one weapon defining the sole design of the e-spec and simply being a more survivable ranger without it.

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Acyk.9671

[Beddo.1907]

27 minutes ago, Acyk.9671 said:

Now works on weapon swap instead of F5, adjusting the CD to 9sec.

 

Awful idea since you lose a whole weapon for the sake of one slightly above average, dps skill and forced Unleashed hammer which locks you into Dps.

 

29 minutes ago, Acyk.9671 said:

Take the "leashed" skills of the pet and give it as a permanent feature to either Druid's pet in mandatory passive mode to improve the pet survivability and control or give it to the trait Invigorating Bond in Nature Magic. We keep Venomous Outburst, Rending Vines and Enveloping Haze at all times and this way the pet is truly untamed and manage its survivability and auto attack on its own letting us focus on the task at hand. We loose access to any beast abilities in the process but it's a fair trade in my opinion.

It also resolves the problem of disables from pets not always activating our traits/utilities.

You lose a part of the kit for literally nothing.

 

31 minutes ago, Acyk.9671 said:

Make it work so it still affects cantrip utilities and traits but not ambushes and pet.

Make it a kit that gives access to  the 4 "Unleashed Hammer" skills regardless of the weapon set equipped and not just hammer. It gives more options in melee and we don't have to worry about one weapon defining the sole design of the e-spec and simply being a more survivable ranger without it.

Look point 1. "We don't have to worry about one weapon defining the sole desing..." by forcing you into the weapon.

 

35 minutes ago, Acyk.9671 said:

Potentially swap the effect with Twice as vicious (Soulbeast) as the current ones would be useless or adapt the concept of "unleashed/leashed stance" in accordance with the new F5

Doesn't change jack kitten. 

Don't use a title "Improving Untamed for WvW", cause not one of those changes do anything in WvW or even improve it anywhere honestly.

[Infusion.7149]

I don't understand the point of changing the unleash state ambushes. You are still going to be able to unleash ranger state without the pet. It also forces you onto a weapon with less cleave than hammer.

I don't see a point to having the pet use skills that are situational on their own (such as teleports or projectile domes).

Making any ranger skills into a "kit" drastically increases keypresses even more than it already has on any Fervent Force variants. 

 

[Acyk.9671]

19 minutes ago, Beddo.1907 said:

Awful idea since you lose a whole weapon for the sake of one slightly above average, dps skill and forced Unleashed hammer which locks you into Dps.

 I don't see what you mean.

19 minutes ago, Beddo.1907 said:

You lose a part of the kit for literally nothing.

True, i just wanted to bring an improvement to core or at least druid but whatever i deleted it's not important.

 

19 minutes ago, Beddo.1907 said:

Look point 1. "We don't have to worry about one weapon defining the sole desing..." by forcing you into the weapon.

I mean is it better to have nothing when you are not playing hammer than having the dps part of the weapon available as F5 regardless of which weapon you use. A 3rd weapon on demand is an improvement, is it not?

[Gotejjeken.1267]

For the Untamed ideas, all I'll say here is I think the unleashed ambush should be on a separate key than the auto-attack.  I mean, sure most of the time it waits until you press auto for it to fire off but noticing it will just consume the unleash anyway if you press another skill first. 

On Hammer I've noticed that specifically, I will unleash pet, CC (#3 or #5), unleash ranger, use #2 for combo dmg, and then no matter what it will consume Relentless Whirl if it's up since my auto-attack is on.  Having auto off on hammer is a huge dps/usability loss (like with sword), so would be nice if they just moved ambush off the auto.

Anyway, for WvW, I think all you need to do is beef up the pet.  Either double its HP, give it a breakbar, or similar--something short of outright making it invulnerable.  

Because the pet issue affects Druid and Core too, not just Untamed.

If they really want to solve this issue, we need a perma stow button.  This way we can put the pet away in zergs and bring it out for smallscale, because the pet will never be effective in a zerg setting.  The devs must know this, they can look at any support druid's YT or Twitch and see they run double bear or bear + turtle and just set it to passive, using the F2 as necessary for a bubble or whatever.  That's just hacky design.

They can split this out for sPvP for all I care--pet is fine there since it's 5-man max.  Sure it still gets condi-bombed and sucks at pathing but its manageable.  Like, a perma-stow there would be great but not having one isn't game breaking in the way it is for WvW.

Edited December 6, 2022 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Acyk.9671]

28 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

I don't understand the point of changing the unleash state ambushes. You are still going to be able to unleash ranger state without the pet. It also forces you onto a weapon with less cleave than hammer.

How can you have less cleave than hammer when you are using the dps skills of hammer?? If you have the hammer weapon equipped now, you press F5 like you do now and you have access to the dps in the exact same way, it's exactly the same thing.

It's an improvement  for when you do not equip hammer to be able to use the hammer dps skills on demand. Imagine you have longbow and axe/warhorn equipped, how having access to hammer dps skills when you are in need of melee dps not an improvement? How is it that pressing F5 after using GS2 to use a dps skill and go back to GS5 to GS2 again then F5 to dps again not an improvement?

[Gotejjeken.1267]

11 minutes ago, Acyk.9671 said:

How can you have less cleave than hammer when you are using the dps skills of hammer?? If you have the hammer weapon equipped now, you press F5 like you do now and you have access to the dps in the exact same way, it's exactly the same thing.

It's an improvement  for when you do not equip hammer to be able to use the hammer dps skills on demand. Imagine you have longbow and axe/warhorn equipped, how having access to hammer dps skills when you are in need of melee dps not an improvement? How is it that pressing F5 after using GS2 to use a dps skill and go back to GS5 to GS2 again then F5 to dps again not an improvement?

Anet would never implement it this way. 

What they'd do is change your skillbar if you unleash your pet to the hammer ones, and then you get the unleashed ranger ones only if you have hammer equipped.  That would be a net loss of a weapon set (when pet is unleashed). 

There is just no other scenario where you get a weapon swap + the unleashed ranger hammer skills, because it creates a problem with hammer itself (as now its redundant), and also is out of line with how they do kits for every other profession.

Even if they would implement this, I'm not sure I'd want that--because it would force you into melee every time you unleash your pet.  It's also super problematic because when you unleash your pet you are already losing all DPS on the pet itself, and now would be losing DPS on every weapon set (because unleashed pet hammer skills have zero damage).  

EDIT: Just quickly thinking on it, what they could do is have a common set of melee/ranged unleashed pet skills depending on what your other weapon sets are.  So, if you were on longbow and unleash pet, you'd get ranged, if you were on gs, you'd get melee. 

This would fix the hammer toggle problem (as now it toggles on all melee weapons), but they'd also need to add in a mix of damage because going only CC mode with pet unleashed isn't as clean of a break as I think the balance devs want it to be.  

Implementing it this way they could still add ambush to a separate key you hit regardless of what you are unleashing (so could fire it off on ranger or pet unleash now, and off auto).

Edited December 6, 2022 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Infusion.7149]

7 minutes ago, Acyk.9671 said:

How can you have less cleave than hammer when you are using the dps skills of hammer?? If you have the hammer weapon equipped now, you press F5 like you do now and you have access to the dps in the exact same way, it's exactly the same thing.

It's an improvement  for when you do not equip hammer to be able to use the hammer dps skills on demand. Imagine you have longbow and axe/warhorn equipped, how having access to hammer dps skills when you are in need of melee dps not an improvement? How is it that pressing F5 after using GS2 to use a dps skill and go back to GS5 to GS2 again then F5 to dps again not an improvement?

I see you completely edited that entire section out.
You wrote something along the lines of "unleash on weapon swap" instead of F5 which means you would be forced into weapon swap for unleash states.

What you're writing is contrary to your suggestion, which doesn't make sense to me whatsoever.

Weaponswap default binding is ` not F5.

[Acyk.9671]

Just now, Infusion.7149 said:

I see you completely edited that entire section out.
You wrote something along the lines of "unleash on weapon swap" instead of F5 which means you would be forced into weapon swap for unleash states.

What you're writing is contrary to your suggestion, which doesn't make sense to me whatsoever.

Weaponswap default binding is ` not F5.

I didn't not edit that part, i said "unleashed ambush" as it is the name of the skill type. I want the ambush after the weapon swap, not controlled by F5

[Infusion.7149]

1 minute ago, Acyk.9671 said:

I didn't not edit that part, i said "unleashed ambush" as it is the name of the skill type. I want the ambush after the weapon swap, not controlled by F5

It means you can't use hammer exclusively in melee essentially. You would be forced to swap to greatsword, sword, or longbow (which is a liability in melee within WVW), or mainhand axe which isn't great in group WVW (due to 2 targets auto and projectile).

That is what I mean by less cleave. The most likely case would be hammer and greatsword unless whoever you are dealing with has no reflects.

[Acyk.9671]

6 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Anet would never implement it this way. 

What they'd do is change your skillbar if you unleash your pet to the hammer ones, and then you get the unleashed ranger ones only if you have hammer equipped.  That would be a net loss of a weapon set (when pet is unleashed). 

There is just no other scenario where you get a weapon swap + the unleashed ranger hammer skills, because it creates a problem with hammer itself (as now its redundant), and also is out of line with how they do kits for every other profession.

Even if they would implement this, I'm not sure I'd want that--because it would force you into melee every time you unleash your pet.  It's also super problematic because when you unleash your pet you are already losing all DPS on the pet itself, and now would be losing DPS on every weapon set (because unleashed pet hammer skills have zero damage).  

That's why i wanted to change the functionality of the pet but the main thing is making sure you get something out of the spec when you are not playing hammer

[Acyk.9671]

1 minute ago, Infusion.7149 said:

It means you can't use hammer exclusively in melee essentially. You would be forced to swap to greatsword, sword, or longbow (which is a liability in melee within WVW), or mainhand axe which isn't great in group WVW (due to 2 targets auto and projectile).

That is what I mean by less cleave. The most likely case would be hammer and greatsword unless whoever you are dealing with has no reflects.

only because we wouldn't change the pet. Cantrips are well done though, all defensive boons are when the pet is "leashed" so it's not a problem in melee because your weapon choices are always the same (hammer, GS, Axe/Axe or potentially warhorn with the daze) but if you don't change how the pet works it can become a problem to use your F5 i see that. 

[Infusion.7149]

6 minutes ago, Acyk.9671 said:

only because we wouldn't change the pet. Cantrips are well done though, all defensive boons are when the pet is "leashed" so it's not a problem in melee because your weapon choices are always the same (hammer, GS, Axe/Axe or potentially warhorn with the daze) but if you don't change how the pet works it can become a problem to use your F5 i see that. 

Could you explain "we wouldn't change the pet"?
The pet is the main issue with untamed in WvW and that also applies to druid. It is not primarily a problem with respect to hammer nor greatsword nor sword+axe. Against groups without reflects even longbow and mainhand axe are usable.

Untamed does have a benefit over soulbeast in that you can boonrip (see Unleashed Ambush on greatsword)  and hammer has better cleave and self-applied stab. However, soulbeast can share dolyak stance , one wolf pack, and bear stance which is far more useful than situational boonrip. If you just wanted CC and boonrip you would run hammer spellbreaker every time.

Edited December 6, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Acyk.9671]

25 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Could you explain "we wouldn't change the pet"?
The pet is the main issue with untamed in WvW and that also applies to druid. It is not primarily a problem with respect to hammer nor greatsword nor sword+axe. Against groups without reflects even longbow and mainhand axe are usable.

Untamed does have a benefit over soulbeast in that you can boonrip and hammer has better cleave and self-applied stab. However, soulbeast can share dolyak stance , one wolf pack, and bear stance which is far more useful than situational boonrip. If you just wanted CC and boonrip you would run hammer spellbreaker every time.

I know the pet is the problem in WvW but if pets on untamed were not affected by F5 you would keep one unique state and give the other to core or druid. Therefore having hammer as a kit is not a problem because If you were to keep only the state with venous, haze, etc, the pet would have become expandable on untamed once you use F1/2/3. Whereas with druid it stays alive on passive because of CA heal so if you add the state with the beast ability to core/druid you can reduce its life on untamed and improve its chance of survival by being the one to use its invuln/evade (bear/smokescale) or all its support (blue moa/turtle) at the right time. The entire problem of Untamed is F5 controlling ambushes, pets and utilities/weapons and losing the ability for the player to use the better pet state with the better weapon/utility state at the right moment. And to be honest, if it were me the druid would swallow its pet on entering CA and "spit it out" on exiting. This way you don't have to care and it offers more support when off CA. The better solution would be no pet when you don't have beastmastery or the ability to disable it 100% of the time.

And yet you can't reliably boonrip because the F5 control instead of weapon swap makes you miss ambushes more often than you would want. The thing is with the right changes you could play entire group of self sustainable rangers with 1 druid, 2 soulbeast giving enough stab for 2 untamed to be as effective as warriors and have access to better immob. 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Acyk.9671

[Acyk.9671]

1 hour ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

This would fix the hammer toggle problem (as now it toggles on all melee weapons), but they'd also need to add in a mix of damage because going only CC mode with pet unleashed isn't as clean of a break as I think the balance devs want it to be.  

Implementing it this way they could still add ambush to a separate key you hit regardless of what you are unleashing (so could fire it off on ranger or pet unleash now, and off auto).

GS is and will always be the best because you can manage your placement. It's the perfect utility weapon for ranger. They don't even have to change everything, just change the ambush to not be F5 controlled but weapon swap and it's already a better a-spec. But it would be a missed opportunity to not look at the rest.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

11 minutes ago, Acyk.9671 said:

GS is and will always be the best because you can manage your placement. It's the perfect utility weapon for ranger. They don't even have to change everything, just change the ambush to not be F5 controlled but weapon swap and it's already a better a-spec. But it would be a missed opportunity to not look at the rest.

 

Sure, but if they buff sword damage it'd outclass gs anyday because of the number of evades (and evade > block due to unblockables).  

So really, they should just have one set for all melee and one set for all ranged to please everyone.  

[Infusion.7149]

49 minutes ago, Acyk.9671 said:

I know the pet is the problem in WvW but if pets on untamed were not affected by F5 you would keep one unique state and give the other to core or druid. Therefore having hammer as a kit is not a problem because If you were to keep only the state with venous, haze, etc, the pet would have become expandable on untamed once you use F1/2/3. Whereas with druid it stays alive on passive because of CA heal so if you add the state with the beast ability to core/druid you can reduce its life on untamed and improve its chance of survival by being the one to use its invuln/evade (bear/smokescale) or all its support (blue moa/turtle) at the right time. The entire problem of Untamed is F5 controlling ambushes, pets and utilities/weapons and losing the ability for the player to use the better pet state with the better weapon/utility state at the right moment. And to be honest, if it were me the druid would swallow its pet on entering CA and "spit it out" on exiting. This way you don't have to care and it offers more support when off CA. The better solution would be no pet when you don't have beastmastery or the ability to disable it 100% of the time.

And yet you can't reliably boonrip because the F5 control instead of weapon swap makes you miss ambushes more often than you would want. The thing is with the right changes you could play entire group of self sustainable rangers with 1 druid, 2 soulbeast giving enough stab for 2 untamed to be as effective as warriors and have access to better immob. 

I don't think Arenanet is going to remove unleash pet states, which means your suggestion is unlikely to happen. Even if the pet is expendable, you have two pets on untamed.

I think siege turtle has the most likelihood of being semi usable when not pushing because it won't run into AOE and sort of keep close to you, I tried messing around with jacaranda due to the call lightning AOE but since its autoattack is so low range it isn't effective. Bristleback isn't as good as siege turtle probably and it doesn't hit 5 targets with the autoattack. It also doesn't provide a second projectile stopping dome outside of Enveloping Haze. 

As far as removing the pet in CA form on druid, I've suggested numerous times the introduction of perma pet stow for druid in WVW. 

I don't see the F5 problem that you see since unleash states are more readily available than swapping weapons unless you are running Greatsword since the greatsword ambush attack always has boonrip. If you want a boonrip on demand you would use Rending Vines on Unleashed pet state which leads again to the pet issue, or Unleashed Overbearing Smash (which is on Unleashed Ranger).

[anduriell.6280]

ambushes are an awful implementation which Anet devs used as bandage aid for the extremely uninspiring and boring UnWanted. 

From my point of view, they can and should remove those, they add very little and makes the class very confusing because guess what: they can't even keep the ambushes design consistent. 

UnDeveloped needs a full rework, a going back to the drawing board and design it properly this time. Nothing else will fix this garbage of an elite design. 

[Kodama.6453]

30 minutes ago, anduriell.6280 said:

From my point of view, they can and should remove those, they add very little and makes the class very confusing because guess what: they can't even keep the ambushes design consistent. 

What exactly do you mean by that? In which way are ambush designs not consistent?

[anduriell.6280]

3 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

What exactly do you mean by that? In which way are ambush designs not consistent?

You would know if you would actually played the class. I am tired now of discussing this topics with peeps who just balance the ranger by the Wiki. Although expected thou as the devs do exactly the same thing. 

We just need an actual ranger player with love for the class to lead the changes here. Anything else is just not it. 

 

[Gotejjeken.1267]

6 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

What exactly do you mean by that? In which way are ambush designs not consistent?

One thing I can think of is ambushes like shortbow's are ground targeted, while the others are not.  This isn't just a different flavor of ambush, it literally is a different mechanic from every other ranged weapon.

You also have issues like Relentless Whirl not being a whirl finisher--in fact I don't think any ambushes are finishers.  This would be out of line with the rest of the skills in the game, as most of them have finishers appropriate to the skill type.

Finally, you have issues like greatsword ambush removing boons but none of the others do without traiting it.  This is just left field and makes no sense.  

Edited December 7, 2022 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Zaret.1450]

If you want to modify ambush skills what you need to do is move them to the 2 skill slot of the weapon, let me explain, having a skill on a countdown, on the autoattack slot and dependant on unleashing on another timer, makes ambush skills in wvw a bit irrelevant, irrelevant becaiae you need to keep unleashing, be it for pet bubble, hammer cc or dmg or whatever, so if instead you put the ambush skill in the 2 slot you have an area skill, that is very usefull in wvw, and a skill that strip boons too wich is another usefull utility, some might think it is too much, but think it only works on unleashed, wich you wont stay permanently, some boon strip isnt too much either as necros have more corrupts and theirs are better too, and dh for example have more dmg than untamed, so doing this would only close the gap a bit, on pve it wont be overpowered either as most 2 skills are better at sinhle target dmg than unleashed ambushes.

As for hammer you could keep the mecanic of the tornado, as it is the emblematic weapon, but making so you have a bigger window to use it.

This change would help make untamed more... stable during zergfights, but if we want it to be, not meta but a good option, we need boon sharing to pets to be on beastmastery, just so pwt traits are condensed on one trait line and we can make pets more resistant, lowering the pet wvw health nerf would be helpfull too, on1v1 you target the ranger while in zergfights pets die to residual dmg, so a bit more sustain would help as pets are part of a rangers set, lastly id look at some skills, mostly comparing to dragonhunter wich i see the most similar to untamed, see if the dmg can be increased by a little bit maybe, or if we can make some utilities a bit more valuable, for example, making untamed a dh version where instead of lb5 cages you have entangle elite, while dh has more dmg, untamed has some boon strip and pets bubbles, so you can take either one depending on what youd want in each moment, be it needing more burst or needing a bit of utility

[Kodama.6453]

On 12/7/2022 at 8:43 PM, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

One thing I can think of is ambushes like shortbow's are ground targeted, while the others are not.  This isn't just a different flavor of ambush, it literally is a different mechanic from every other ranged weapon.

Fair point, but I think this is intentional design because it is literally the only ground targeted skill on ranger's shortbow. Everything else does not need to get aimed at all.

But it definitely is clunky considering that you have a very limited time to aim it.

On 12/7/2022 at 8:43 PM, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

You also have issues like Relentless Whirl not being a whirl finisher--in fact I don't think any ambushes are finishers.  This would be out of line with the rest of the skills in the game, as most of them have finishers appropriate to the skill type.

Yeah, the lack of finishers is kinda weird. On top of relentless whirl getting whirl finisher, deft strike should be a leap and multishot should be projectile finishers, probably.

On 12/7/2022 at 8:43 PM, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Finally, you have issues like greatsword ambush removing boons but none of the others do without traiting it.  This is just left field and makes no sense.

Here I have to disagree. Why is giving greatsword an additional effect over the other ambushes "left field and makes no sense"?

Multishot reduces longbow cooldowns, but no other ambush does, no one finds that weird. Giving greatsword a niche of being slightly the best boon removal weapon on untamed is fine for me.

[Sansar.1302]

Been solo roaming on my untamed for the last month now (maurader with a few pices of assasin to get 100% crit rate with fury )

 

 

And it is so strong and fun , bit weak vs condi ( or condi is to strong at the moment this is what i belive )

 

As all Eod specs it a bit too powerful i think. ( exluding bladesworn )

 

 

I can regulary win 1 v 2 and sometimes eaven 1 v 3 

 

Abut 50 solo kils a day in wvw ( 2-3 hour play time )

 

Ofcoure  there are some pro thives etc out there that beat me.

[Sandzibar.5134]

pet dies almost instantly when fighting 2+ enemies which spam aoe.. so basically all the standard necro / ele / engy / guardian builds you meet roaming in wvw.

 

its ok for 1v1s though. sure.