The State of Untamed in WvW (DO NOT REMOVE FERVENT FORCE)

[Pharmacist.5410]

Hi,

 

I have done enough testing with Untamed and I believe Untamed is in a much better state (almost right where it needs to be. I believe it is now actually incredibly viable to play in either power, condi, or hybrid regardless of what anyone says.. it STRONGLY depends on the player’s ability to figure it out.

 

Firstly, Fervent Force is a valuable option that MUST be left alone or atleast change its effects to reduce only certain cooldowns or put a useful condition applying trait in place of it. As a matter of fact, FF actually helps Untamed feel more fluid in battle. (Untamed is now capable of more than what most people think) As it offers a high reward playstyle while sacrificing healing or damage modifiers . It is an extremely necessary and well-deserved trait for an otherwise neglected specialization.
 

If elementalists are allowed to have an OBSURD amount of aura spam, guardians can have blocks spam, etc.. WHY take the fervent force option away when it is exactly what gives Untamed an OPTION to feel more fluid. Removing it would be taking 10 steps back in in the wrong direction. Trust me on this.

 

The 3 GM traits are already great as is since we are able to select the EXACT choices for Untamed to adapt to various encounters. Sacrificing either Fluidity, Sustain, or Damage when necessary. Fervent Force allows everything to “click” once the Untamed ranger has the rotations down. Without it would be a massive hit to the spec.
 

The MAIN focus should be fixing some of the unleash ambush skills..  For example, the short bow ambush should either be able to lock targets (just like renegade SB 3) or at least the window to cast it MUST be extended just a tad, as it becomes unavailable to cast nearly instantaneously. 
 

Finally, I suggest a rework of the pet system in WvW.. Like being able to pet stow while in combat (on CD) or at least reduction of the cooldowns when pets die because there is nothing to compensate for it and greatly hinders the performance of rangers outside of Soulbeast in extended battles like WvW zerging.
 

To counteract this, Rangers have to literally get out of combat to hop on their Warclaws to reset the pets. Which brings to light how much the pet system outside of soul beast has been neglected. It simply should NOT be this way in any game mode for the ANY ranger specializations.

 

Fix the pet problem and fix the cast window for ambush skills. That’s literally it. You guys have placed Untamed almost exactly where it needs to be.
 

Thanks,

 

-P R E D A T O R I A

Edited December 7, 2022 by Pharmacist.5410
FF could be changed to be applied to only certain CDS, not all

[Beddo.1907]

FF will hurt ranger in the long run, due to forcing core and untamed changes to be balanced around it.

We've had this topic over and over and FF will be deleted.

[Pharmacist.5410]

Particularly in WvW, I don’t believe it would hurt ranger to be honest. After testing, Having FF gives the Untamed access to a more rewarding smooth play style since it does have a higher skill cap. This one trait does not define Untamed but it does make it have a unique option since it requires sacrificing direct incoming healing through strike damage or outgoing damage modifiers.

 

Both of which can be used for either bunker builds or ranged power damage builds and leave less windows for error than FF. This trait places Untamed on par with several other professions by offering it something worth having so long as the player understands what they’re doing. There are far more superior traits/utilities that define the other professions.

Call them “brain dead” for lack of a better term. 

[Hallow.7368]

1 hour ago, Pharmacist.5410 said:

Hi,

 

I have done enough testing with Untamed and I believe Untamed is in a much better state (almost right where it needs to be. I believe it is now actually incredibly viable to play in either power, condi, or hybrid regardless of what anyone says.. it STRONGLY depends on the player’s ability to figure it out.

 

Firstly, Fervent Force is a valuable option that MUST be left alone. As a matter of fact, it actually helps Untamed feel more fluid in battle in some. (Untamed is now capable of more than what most people think) As it offers a high reward playstyle while sacrificing healing or damage modifiers . It is an extremely necessary and well-deserved trait.
 

If elementalists are allowed to have an OBSURD amount of aura spam, guardians can have blocks spam, etc.. WHY take the fervent force option away when it is exactly what gives Untamed an OPTION to feel more fluid. Removing it would be taking 10 steps back in in the wrong direction. Trust me on this.

 

The 3 GM traits are already great as is since we are able to select the EXACT choices for Untamed to adapt to various encounters. Sacrificing either Fluidity, Sustain, or Damage when necessary. Fervent Force allows everything to “click” once the Untamed ranger has the rotations down. Without it would be a massive hit to the spec.
 

The MAIN focus should be fixing some of the unleash ambush skills..  For example, the short bow ambush should either be able to lock targets (just like renegade SB 3) or at least the window to cast it MUST be extended just a tad, as it becomes unavailable to cast nearly instantaneously. 
 

Finally, I suggest a rework of the pet system in WvW.. Like being able to pet stow while in combat (on CD) or at least reduction of the cooldowns when pets die because there is nothing to compensate for it and greatly hinders the performance of rangers outside of Soulbeast in extended battles like WvW zerging.
 

To counteract this, Rangers have to literally get out of combat to hop on their Warclaws to reset the pets. Which brings to light how much the pet system outside of soul beast has been neglected. It simply should NOT be this way in any game mode for the ANY ranger specializations.

 

Fix the pet problem and fix the cast window for ambush skills. That’s literally it. You guys have placed Untamed almost exactly where it needs to be.
 

Thanks,

 

-P R E D A T O R I A

Untamed isn't an elite specs, fervant force is. You never swap off this trait. Literally never. You don't NEED the sustain trait when you can just spam your heal skill every 3 seconds because of fervant force. The problem is simply just that a trait that spam reduces all cool downs specializes in basically everything because you can go and equip any utility skills you want/need for a given situation in your flex spots and fervant force increases your effectiveness by allowing you to use it more. This means the sustain trait will never be viable because it's simply just worse for that intended purpose and the damage trait would need to be obscenely high because it would need to not only actually do more damage than fervant force (which does a ridiculous amount of DPS), but also be large enough of a damage increase to be worth taking over the utility benefits that FF brings. Not to mention it relies on your pets horrible AI to stack it and keep it stacked.

And as someone else said in the long run FF would get core ranger abilities gutted.

So nah remove that kitten and just make the class actually work without needing an insanely broken trait as a bandaid. Praying to god they make it a functional pet spec lol.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Hallow.7368

[Pharmacist.5410]

Can we make this crystal clear?

 

I feel like most people here are more concerned with how it behaves in PvE… I could understand it getting tuned down for that game mode only or at the very least make changes to it but not completely remove it.

Again, I’m specifically referring to the use of FF in WvW. It’s perfectly fine as is and its really not as broken since most people seem to be referring how broken it is in PVE.. In WvW, FF only triggers in situations where an opponent doesn’t have stability, reflect, block, or evade an attack therefore it doesn’t always trigger. That’s 4 methods to counter it and not to mention most people run stun breaks.

 

There are so many more ways that it can fail compared to the latter traits. therefore having the other 2 GM traits always is the better option.

The healing trait is actually far more broken.. Try Sanctuary runes with it on… The damage modifiers with longbow is actually superior for longbow DPS.

Have you actually tried it in WvW yet?? It’s really not broken..

Now let’s please stop talking about all the benchmark dps and cooldown spam because FF doesn’t define Untamed.  It’s significantly easier to land disables in PvE than it is in WvW. So I hope we’re on the same page with that.

FF actually helps Untamed keep up with wayyy broken specs which are 10x better with 10x less effort.  And even then it still struggles.

[ApaWanka.2698]

Displaimer! I don’t play Pve (just PvP and WvW)

 

according with what I can see, FF is just a problem on PvE. 
 

FF is not meta for PvP (or WvW roaming/Zerg) but is still a good trait that give the chance to build diversity (you an still see randomly some Condi or Hammer untamed that use it) so it would be sad to see it go a reduce build diversity and force everyone to the old LB/GS play style AGAIN….. that would be disappointing. 

 

However I can see why is a problem for PvE, 4s CD reduction for a random CC on a mob it is too much….  but that can be solved just bringing down that 4 s to 2s as it is on PvP/WvW or even 1s if it still strong for PvE keeping the competitive trait intact allowing the chance for people to think out of the box and play a funny not meta play style. 
 

So if the trait is a problem only in ONE game mode and we even have already the partition for thst game mode, change the numbers for that split and leave the non problematic versions (PvP and WvW) as they are caring about build diversity.

Edited December 7, 2022 by ApaWanka.2698

[Pharmacist.5410]

That’s what I’m saying, it seems most people are so tilted by FF because of how it overperforms in their preferred game modes, yet don’t take into account that it brings a niche playstyle which requires an extremely high skill cap to achieve any value from it in another game mode. I mean really… I have been testing an interesting Condi Hammer build and FF is really not the strongest option but it offers an interesting playstyle that I found fun because of how challenging it is to run it. It actually isn’t that much of a game breaking trait in WvW.. So I demand you PvE guys wake up and at least give that trait the benefit of the doubt.. I don’t blame them though

 

Its a PvE mindset I guess..

Call it “tunnel vision” for lack of a better phrase.

[Dadnir.5038]

2 hours ago, Pharmacist.5410 said:

extremely necessary

Any trait that's "extremly necessary" is a threat to balance.

Also, everything is potentially broken in WvW, this gamemode is impossible to balance. And you are totally underestimating the impact of hard CCs and thus fervent force in WvW. If tomorow an organized zerg decide to go on a fun Untamed run with fervent force, no amount of stab and stunbreak will be able to stop such a zerg.

Edit: You think people are mostly concerned about PvE? The fun fact is that the most vocal on the forum are only concerned about sPvP. That said, FF is less of a threat in PvP than it is in any other gamemode, if anything that's the only gamemode where such trait design isn't bound to be totally broken.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Dadnir.5038

[ApaWanka.2698]

The break is already in place that is the 1/4s ICD.

 

That keep it cool for zergs because no matter what, you can only get 1 proc of the trait if you CC someone or 0 if not, while the number of CCs thst s build can have is already limited while the Stability time on zergs is in general high.
 

just with that you break the cascade effect of infinite CCs….
 

So it don’t have potential to be a problem on WvW ( additionally thst have a change el to play ranger in Zergs would be great after 10 years almost banned from that game mode…. Nowadays we can play Druid more or less but still lackluster in front of Tempest, FB or Scrapper, the stow pet or something to revive it at least is a must)

 

Anet try to balance all the 3 game modes together for years and at the end they did the splits for a reason. PvE snd Competitive Modes are too different to be balanced together…. Thing may be a problem in one game mode but no in another (lost if skills / traits have longer CDs or lower effects in competitive and it’s just fine) …. On this case we can keep it on the same way but reverse. 
 

FF bring new play styles for ranger with something different on the table. It’s too much for PvE? Balance it on that game mode but don’t kill it all

Edited December 7, 2022 by ApaWanka.2698

[ApaWanka.2698]

Spoiler

 

Double post sorry

Edited December 7, 2022 by ApaWanka.2698

[Pharmacist.5410]

I value your opinion.. I say “extremely necessary” in that it welcome a new challenging playstyle that requires a higher level of game awareness and pet awareness which makes the player feel more engaged to playing “UNTAMED”unlike that in PvE. It’s unique and balanced. It’s high risk for a high reward for players who like to challenge themselves. Any coordinated guild group would melt an “Untamed blob” at Guinness world record speeds.. Soulbeast is way stronger for a “Ranger Zerg”
 

Now, in the case of your hypothetical Untamed Zerg, I’d love to see that happen. (It never will) It’s really not as easy to play with FF in WvW as you think which is just purely ignorant of you for speculating that and basing opinions off of hypotheticals and not facts.

 

There are so many factors against the use of FF, but that is part of the reason why Untamed is fun for me personally is seeing it shine in only SOME situations.. even though the heal or damage modifiers outperform FF drastically. 
 

I will literally run on sentence the kitten out of this until you get my point.

 

Sorry.

 

18 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Any trait that's "extremly necessary" is a threat to balance.

Also, everything is potentially broken in WvW, this gamemode is impossible to balance. And you are totally underestimating the impact of hard CCs and thus fervent force in WvW. If tomorow an organized zerg decide to go on a fun Untamed run with fervent force, no amount of stab and stunbreak will be able to stop such a zerg.

.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Pharmacist.5410
Mistake

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, Pharmacist.5410 said:

I value your opinion.. I say “extremely necessary” in that it welcome a new challenging playstyle that requires a higher level of game awareness and pet awareness which makes the player feel more engaged to playing “UNTAMED”unlike that in PvE. It’s unique and balanced. It’s high risk for a high reward for players who like to challenge themselves. Any coordinated guild group would melt an “Untamed blob” at Guinness world record speeds.. Soulbeast is way stronger for a “Ranger Zerg”
 

Now, in the case of your hypothetical Untamed Zerg, I’d love to see that happen. (It never will) It’s really not as easy to play with FF in WvW as you think which is just purely ignorant of you for speculating that and basing opinions off of hypotheticals and not facts.

 

There are so many factors against the use of FF, but that is part of the reason why Untamed is fun for me personally is seeing it shine in only SOME situations.. even though the heal or damage modifiers outperform FF drastically. 
 

I will literally run on sentence the kitten out of this until you get my point.

 

Sorry.

You're giving to much value to what you believe is difficult or are things that goes against the use of a mechanism.

I've seen the balance of this game for more than 10 years already. I can tell you that:

- Whenever hard CC are involved, people tend to initially vastly underestimate the potential and nerfs aren't far away. It was true for warrior in the vanilla game, then the slick shoes Engineer, Mersmer, for the initial design of scrapper, for the initial trap trait of dragonhunter, for chronomancer, for necromancer's fear... etc.  (Take note that stability was vastly stronger in the vanilla game than it is nowadays yet Hard CC still led to hard nerfs).

- CD reduction are a very sensitive subject when it come to balance (and that doesn't only concern PvE, in fact it heavily impact competitive modes). You see these 2s of CD reduction on hard CC in the vaccuum of your dps rotation, I see it in what it actually does: reducing all your skills CD, including heal, stunbreak, invuln/strke damage immunity, evade skills... etc. Ultimately it come down to a disgusting amount of extra survivability when used right.

- There is no lack of blatantly OP things in the game that aren't exploited or are simply underestimated by the playerbase. I've called out many of them and history never let me down even if people tend to ridicule me at the moment when I called those thing out. Each time players did give the time and effort to make those underestimated mechanisms more popular it led to a dire need for a quick "fix". I can garantee you that Fervent Force is such a mechanism.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Dadnir.5038

[anduriell.6280]

5 hours ago, Beddo.1907 said:

FF will hurt ranger in the long run, due to forcing core and untamed changes to be balanced around it.

We've had this topic over and over and FF will be deleted.

That would be a very sad happening if that is so. Another unique effect from the ranger removed, just few months after it's introduction. Somebody will think the hate from the dev team to the class they themselves designed is actually real.

I guess we still don't have any dev in Anet which can stand playing with a ranger. After all we already know they only play with firebrand and engineer. 

[Beddo.1907]

2 hours ago, anduriell.6280 said:

That would be a very sad happening if that is so. Another unique effect from the ranger removed, just few months after it's introduction. Somebody will think the hate from the dev team to the class they themselves designed is actually real.

I guess we still don't have any dev in Anet which can stand playing with a ranger. After all we already know they only play with firebrand and engineer. 

Untamed is basically FF. It's quite obvious that Untamed had no clear focus and was ultimately made out of 4-5 ideas.

While FF is unique, it also shouldn't have been added in the first place. Hopefully CMC sticks the landing with Untamed rework. Dev team is way more flexible now and actually listens to feedback (not going through with Scrapper gyros and DE rifle range changes).

[Infusion.7149]

I don't agree that Untamed is Fervent Force. It is designed to be the "bunny thumper" from GW1, i.e. CC and a pet that adds some DPS and CC via Rampage as One.

Ferocious Symbiosis is basically RaO  /TaO https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Rampage_as_One  
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/"Together_as_One!"
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Enraged_Lunge

Restorative Strikes essentially adds sustain to replace Wilderness Survival.

The main issue with Fervent Force is it recharges everything which is the same problem that Bladesworn had with Tactical Reload but less severe since it doesn't recharge it all completely.

In addition, mentioning shortbow suggests to me that this post is about roaming because nobody is going to be running shortbow in any group environment due to condi focus and even more especially due to the flanking.

[Pharmacist.5410]

5 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

You're giving to much value to what you believe is difficult or are things that goes against the use of a mechanism.

I've seen the balance of this game for more than 10 years already. I can tell you that:

- Whenever hard CC are involved, people tend to initially vastly underestimate the potential and nerfs aren't far away. It was true for warrior in the vanilla game, then the slick shoes Engineer, Mersmer, for the initial design of scrapper, for the initial trap trait of dragonhunter, for chronomancer, for necromancer's fear... etc.  (Take note that stability was vastly stronger in the vanilla game than it is nowadays yet Hard CC still led to hard nerfs).

- CD reduction are a very sensitive subject when it come to balance (and that doesn't only concern PvE, in fact it heavily impact competitive modes). You see these 2s of CD reduction on hard CC in the vaccuum of your dps rotation, I see it in what it actually does: reducing all your skills CD, including heal, stunbreak, invuln/strke damage immunity, evade skills... etc. Ultimately it come down to a disgusting amount of extra survivability when used right.

- There is no lack of blatantly OP things in the game that aren't exploited or are simply underestimated by the playerbase. I've called out many of them and history never let me down even if people tend to ridicule me at the moment when I called those thing out. Each time players did give the time and effort to make those underestimated mechanisms more popular it led to a dire need for a quick "fix". I can garantee you that Fervent Force is such a mechanism.

All I have to say is FF luckily isn’t shared with Allie’s because then it would be a real problem.. it offers an interesting high skill high reward cap to Untamed that makes it feel more “predatorial” as it perfectly goes in conjunction with the class fantasy.

 

Believe me when I say predatorial.. you’d only understand once you see me hop on people out of leopard form to gank them and then stealth away using trap runes. I may just be the first actual Untamed Trapper and I might just be one of the FEW people playing Untamed exactly how it was designed to be played in WvW.  It offers something similar to deadeye which is just interesting for Ranger to have such predatory capabilities aside from having a kitten GS and a LB. It allows non meta builds to function properly so long as a player has high level of prowess.
 

While FF is incredibly fun it can be quite punishing to play over the heal trait or damage trait since those offer more efficient usage. But it offers the ability to make fast paced high skill cap non meta builds more viable which isn’t just you’re average meta LB/GS ranger and it’s why it’s incredibly valuable.

if it were to be removed there must be compensation to allow some level of fluidity to occurs with the spec. It shouldn’t be removed but worked on? Sure. Perhaps, make it so it doesn’t effect all equipped skills and rather certain skills instead or maybe just one random skill at a time.
 

it requires high maintenance and high keyboard input compared to dead eye spamming stealth and infinitely kiting.. or Elementalists who can play with one hand yet spam Magnetic Auras to allies left and right, changing the tides of entire fights drastically, or even Warrior CC chains which are infinitely easier to achieve than with Untamed.
 

The entire ranger toolkits is simply not as impactful at all and FF allows high skilled players create more diverse builds. Which is well deserved and necessary.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

I said this in the other FF thread. Fervent Force has the same problem that Tactical Reload did, that it is recharging too many skills. Skill recharges should be isolated to very specific skills or have a very long CD.

TR was rightfully nerfed in the way it should have been, but with clunk added to it sadly.

FF will end up getting nerfed, so instead of the fruitless QQ on trying to keep it as is, why not direct the energy to something more constructive like potential yet strong alternatives?

For instance, one thing I recommended in the other FF thread is to have FF grant access to the equipped weapon's ambush skill upon landing a CC and give it a 10s CD. This allows for combos with back-to-back Ambush skills and keeps the effects of the trait contained within Untamed which in turn keeps Core from getting nerfed due to the sins of an espec. Both of which are good for the spec and for ranger in the long run.

[Pharmacist.5410]

37 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

I said this in the other FF thread. Fervent Force has the same problem that Tactical Reload did, that it is recharging too many skills. Skill recharges should be isolated to very specific skills or have a very long CD.

TR was rightfully nerfed in the way it should have been, but with clunk added to it sadly.

FF will end up getting nerfed, so instead of the fruitless QQ on trying to keep it as is, why not direct the energy to something more constructive like potential yet strong alternatives?

For instance, one thing I recommended in the other FF thread is to have FF grant access to the equipped weapon's ambush skill upon landing a CC and give it a 10s CD. This allows for combos with back-to-back Ambush skills and keeps the effects of the trait contained within Untamed which in turn keeps Core from getting nerfed due to the sins of an espec. Both of which are good for the spec and for ranger in the long run.

Before they do what you suggested they should address the casting windows and ability to target enemy players as well. And also give some more attention to the pet system.. Because it’s becoming clear that FF is becoming a concern when in reality it’s a step in the right direction with the current state of Untamed.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

18 minutes ago, Pharmacist.5410 said:

Before they do what you suggested they should address the casting windows and ability to target enemy players as well. And also give some more attention to the pet system..

Pet system aside, could you elaborate on your concerns on the casting windows and enemy player targeting please?

18 minutes ago, Pharmacist.5410 said:

Because it’s becoming clear that FF is becoming a concern when in reality it’s a step in the right direction with the current state of Untamed.

Infinite recharging of CDs with virtually no CD is bound to feel like a step in the right direction for any spec, but it is not nor ever been a good idea, even on a 60s CD.

[Pharmacist.5410]

7 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Pet system aside, could you elaborate on your concerns on the casting windows and enemy player targeting please?

Infinite recharging of CDs with virtually no CD is bound to feel like a step in the right direction for any spec, but it is not nor ever been a good idea, even on a 60s CD.

Particularly when unleashing with a short bow, it has an ability called “Toxic Shot” , in the heat of battle it is nearly impossible to land simply because there is about a 2 second window to cast it (and easy to evade). Similar to how they made the changes to “Sevenshot” from Renegade shortbow to lock onto targets is a change that is needed with Untamed. It would make condi variants more viable.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Pharmacist.5410
Casting window too short on Unleashed Shortbow

[Infusion.7149]

It is plain as day you are suggesting based off "ganking" people with a condi trapper (shortbow?) untamed. This is not what WvW is balanced off of. Changing shortbow to be tracking with the unleashed ambush doesn't suddenly raise its viability in a group environment which is where rangers were lacking to begin with.

What Lan suggested above is actually more inline with a possibility of happening although I would think that Fervent Force would also continue to recharge pet unleashed skills and/or cantrips to be more thematic rather than just the unleashed ambush if that sort of idea is the end result. In fact the unleashed ambush on longbow already functions accordingly since it recharges longbow skills (which is a subset of skills rather than all of them) when you hit with it. Given longbow barrage is used in place of meteor shower when hitting structures to take out mortars and other defensive siege on the inside of a wall that would help a bit.

There's a trait called Power Wrench on engineer that reduces the cooldown of the elite on dodge by 3s in PvE and 1s in PVP/WVW but also has a flat cooldown decrease for toolbelt skills (i.e. a subset of skills). This would probably be the kind of trait Fervent Force would end up becoming especially when you consider the 300s PVP/WVW cooldowns changed to now activate on elite skill usage.

Ranger already has a daze and stun duration modifier (Moment of Clarity) and a movement impaired/stun damage increase (Predator's Onslaught) in marksmanship so that sort of thing would not be repeated on Untamed I think.

Instead of the fixation on Fervent Force I would look into helping Ferocious Symbiosis by providing crit chance and fury to the pet for example. If a person runs the strike damage to healing trait (Restorative Strikes) it is a weaker archetype since you are trying to replicate the scrapper playstyle without superspeed; barrier gives a far larger buffer to damage than damage to healing.

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

2 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

I don't agree that Untamed is Fervent Force. It is designed to be the "bunny thumper" from GW1, i.e. CC and a pet that adds some DPS and CC via Rampage as One.

Ferocious Symbiosis is basically RaO  /TaO https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Rampage_as_One  
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/"Together_as_One!"
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Enraged_Lunge

Restorative Strikes essentially adds sustain to replace Wilderness Survival.

The main issue with Fervent Force is it recharges everything which is the same problem that Bladesworn had with Tactical Reload but less severe since it doesn't recharge it all completely.

In addition, mentioning shortbow suggests to me that this post is about roaming because nobody is going to be running shortbow in any group environment due to condi focus and even more especially due to the flanking.

Untamed plays in PvE as Fervent Force. There's no denying it.

Untamed in PvP plays as core+shadowstep.

 

[ApaWanka.2698]

12 minutes ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

Untamed plays in PvE as Fervent Force. There's no denying it.

Untamed in PvP plays as core+shadowstep.

 

Can’t say more with less words…..
 

FF is not the only or even the first skill/trait that do similar stuff, See Improvisation (thief), F5 con Chono or actually any build that can provide Alacrity sometimes even AOE (May be more but these are the ones that como to the top of my head) 

 

So reduce CDs is not something new to the game, so FF it’s just a different implementation of something that already exist.

 

 We can discuss about if this mechanic is good of bad for the game or if this implementation is the best but FF is not a unique first time thing that should be addressed

 it’s just one more between others that have a number issue just on one game mode. Shave that 4s reduction to 2s or 1s (and maybe AOE) and the problem is gone. Not much different to apply Alacrity when you CC instead of wells, virtues or a been close to a big robot pulsing it.  

@Lan Deathrider.5910 Any if those have infinite recharge (specially in PvP or WvW) in the case of FF would be CC, but the amount of CC  skill that you can use (pet skills doesn’t count) and the willingness of you enemy to revceive them make it not infinite recharge. And For PvE just tune the numbers that are too high down.

Ranger never had before some any kind of tempo trait or skill so lets keep build diversity and don’t remove it just balance it for different game modes as other skills

FF and Unnatural Transversal the only 2 things that make untamed a bit different, allowing for different play styles and bringing something new for rangers to the table…. Out of that is just a bunch of not that rewarding micro managing. Remove them and there is no point to play Untamed in front of Druid or SB (or even core)

Edited December 7, 2022 by ApaWanka.2698

[Pharmacist.5410]

1 hour ago, Infusion.7149 said:

It is plain as day you are suggesting based off "ganking" people with a condi trapper (shortbow?) untamed. This is not what WvW is balanced off of. Changing shortbow to be tracking with the unleashed ambush doesn't suddenly raise its viability in a group environment which is where rangers were lacking to begin with.

What Lan suggested above is actually more inline with a possibility of happening although I would think that Fervent Force would also continue to recharge pet unleashed skills and/or cantrips to be more thematic rather than just the unleashed ambush if that sort of idea is the end result. In fact the unleashed ambush on longbow already functions accordingly since it recharges longbow skills (which is a subset of skills rather than all of them) when you hit with it. Given longbow barrage is used in place of meteor shower when hitting structures to take out mortars and other defensive siege on the inside of a wall that would help a bit.

There's a trait called Power Wrench on engineer that reduces the cooldown of the elite on dodge by 3s in PvE and 1s in PVP/WVW but also has a flat cooldown decrease for toolbelt skills (i.e. a subset of skills). This would probably be the kind of trait Fervent Force would end up becoming especially when you consider the 300s PVP/WVW cooldowns changed to now activate on elite skill usage.

Ranger already has a daze and stun duration modifier (Moment of Clarity) and a movement impaired/stun damage increase (Predator's Onslaught) in marksmanship so that sort of thing would not be repeated on Untamed I think.

Instead of the fixation on Fervent Force I would look into helping Ferocious Symbiosis by providing crit chance and fury to the pet for example. If a person runs the strike damage to healing trait (Restorative Strikes) it is a weaker archetype since you are trying to replicate the scrapper playstyle without superspeed; barrier gives a far larger buffer to damage than damage to healing.

 

My proposal to make the changes to "Toxic Shot" on Short bow is actually very valid, which even MukLuk pointed out on one of his Youtube videos awhile back and many people who ACTUALLY tested it in live gameplay can attest to how clunky it can be.

 

Although it's not impossible to benefit from it. It is very necessary to review the way the Toxic Shot ability functions since it is very clunky and very difficult to make use out of it because of how short the casting window is.

 

It's on a 15 s cooldown with nearly a 2 second casting window. Which simply becomes unreliable when you factor in all the evade mechanics, reflects, and blocks. It needs to function the same way as ALL the other short bow skills i.e( SB 4 and 5) which automatically lock on targets at least to make more efficient use out of it with proper chaining and timing of skills. It simply makes absolute sense to address that and there shouldn't be any arguments against it. Just see it for yourself.

 

This may actually give an opportunity for the devs to also review several of the other weapons Unleashed Abilities since some of the other ones already work excellently because they have been given some attention.

It'll help balance out build diversity with Untamed as opposed to just everyone running the same old power builds. My proposal is to give that same love to shortbow as it actually can make rangers quite capable of making impactful plays in extended group play. Please refer back to how I said the changes to Rev shortbow 3 (Sevenshot) was updated to lock on targets and this is somewha similar to that on Untamed Shortbow. Again, SB 4 and 5 already locks on targets.. SB 2 shoots in a cone. At the very least they could address "Toxic Shot" to either shoot in a cone or lock on a target.

 

The problem is that everyone is under the impression Untamed ONLY works for power builds and so they decide to run your usual Longbow and GS build. There always has to be someone to voice out certain issues in relation to non meta builds to promote diversity to specializations and that's exactly what I'm doing. 

 

But I do agree with Lan that Fervent Force could be changed to reduce only certain cooldowns or something of similar effect. But to remove it entirely would be detrimental to the class fantasy of Untamed, trust me man. The only valid substitute for it would be some kind of condition-applying related trait. As it would make an incredible amount of sense to have a selection from Condi, Sustain, and Direct power damage between the GM traits. But Fervent Force CAN still be kept, just perhaps apply it's effects differently instead of to all skills.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Pharmacist.5410
Give "Toxic Shot" ability some attention

[Infusion.7149]

7 minutes ago, Pharmacist.5410 said:

 

My proposal to make the changes to "Toxic Shot" on Short bow is actually very valid, which even MukLuk pointed out on one of his Youtube videos awhile back and many people who ACTUALLY tested it in live gameplay can attest to how clunky it can be.

 

Although it's not impossible to benefit from it. It is very necessary to review the way the Toxic Shot ability functions since it is very clunky and very difficult to make use out of it because of how short the casting window is.

 

It's on a 15 s cooldown with nearly a 2 second casting window. Which simply becomes unreliable when you factor in all the evade mechanics, reflects, and blocks. It needs to function the same way as ALL the other short bow skills i.e( SB 4 and 5) which automatically lock on targets at least to make more efficient use out of it with proper chaining and timing of skills. It simply makes absolute sense to address that and there shouldn't be any arguments against it. Just see it for yourself.

 

This may actually give an opportunity for the devs to also review several of the other weapons Unleashed Abilities since some of the other ones already work excellently. It'll help balance out build diversity with Untamed as opposed to just everyone running the same old power builds. My proposal is to give that same love to shortbow as it actually can make rangers quite capable of making impactful plays in extended group play. Please refer back to how I said the changes to Rev shortbow 3 (Sevenshot) was updated to lock on targets and this is somewha similar to that on Untamed Shortbow. Again, SB 4 and 5 already locks on targets.. SB 2 shoots in a cone. At the very least they could address "Toxic Shot" to either shoot in a cone or lock on a target.

 

The problem is that everyone is under the impression Untamed ONLY works for power builds and so they decide to run your usual Longbow and GS build. There always has to be someone to voice out certain issues in relation to non meta builds to promote diversity to specializations and that's exactly what I'm doing. 

 

But I do agree with Lan that Fervent Force could be changed to reduce only certain cooldowns or something of similar effect. But to remove it entirely would be detrimental to the class fantasy of Untamed, trust me man. The only valid substitute for it would be some kind of condition-applying related trait. As it would make an incredible amount of sense to have a selection from Condi, Sustain, and Direct power damage between the GM traits. But Fervent Force CAN still be kept, just perhaps apply it's effects differently instead of to all skills.

I'm just pointing out that you are tunnel visioned on condi. Note I never wrote that Toxic Shot should not be improved. Condi and projectiles no less has never been the predominant way to play WvW in a group environment. Unless you are arguing that untamed is supposed to be a roamer spec first and foremost when soulbeast, core , and druid were perfectly viable for that and boonbeast was even dominant in roaming.

Since druid is not a damage spec and for whatever reason Arenanet refuses to give druid a pet stow option in WVW it is important that Untamed is actually a strong way to play power in a group setting. Right now you are more likely to run stanceshare soulbeast because sharing dolyak stance is a legitimate usage even if hammer is better than greatsword in terms of cleave , CC , and possibly damage.

Anyhow it is a good thing you acknowledge that Fervent Force recharging all skills (rather than a subset) is unlikely to remain in the game.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Infusion.7149