Phoenix Rework

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

So, the EoD pets were mostly a bust. At launch they all sucked, and after some reworks the only pet that's worth taking for any utility is the White Tiger, with the Siege Turtle's bubble being awful, the wallow just being a slightly worse porcine (in most scenarios, at least the F2 is half decent relative to the porcines), and the phoenix being so oriented towards dps that, because it fails at that, is not worth taking in any scenario in pvp, wvw, or pve.

Such a simple fix would be to change Gale Breath, the F2, to act more like the Icebrood Saga Essence Special Action keys- Spirit Nova (Resilience skill, the red one), Night Terror (Valor skill, the green one), and Shattered Psyche (Vigilance skill, the blue one). If you're familiar with IBS strikes, you'll know these skills well- a 1s cast, 1s blast of massive damage.

While the phoenix certainly would need a nerf to the output of the skill itself (6.2k damage spread across 6 hits, so roughly 1.03k per hit, with a 1s cast time and a 20s cooldown for the current stats), it could definitely use a buff in the casting of this skill. For those who do not know, the phoenix uses the minor wyvern model and many of it's animations. That's all well and good, less work for them to make sure they deliver a functional expansion I suppose, however the phoenix also uses the breath animation of the minor Electric Wyvern, which has a sweeping path. This takes far too long for the phoenix to get back into doing damage, as the breath hits in almost a set of 3 lines. This effectively means that your Gale Breath, the supposedly incredibly strong F2 that is supposed to do 6.2k damage, is actually doing more of about 2.06k damage (ignoring crits since you can't crit cap your pets), as most bosses (where this is extremely relevant) have a hitbox small enough to only be hit by 2 of those hits, the second hit and the 5th (as it does 2 sweeps of 3 hits, with the 2nd and 5th are the ones that hit a "normal" hitbox), with a pretty hefty 20s cooldown.

I'd suggest take the number of hits down to 2, or even 1, with a total damage of ~2k (ignoring crits). Casting time of 3/4s (could be left alone), cooldown of ~8s. This gives the damage a much shorter window, letting the phoenix get back to doing damage that much faster. Before any mentions of the cooldown and cast time being too fast, the Orange Tiger's f2 takes 1.5s to cast and has a 10s cooldown, with 10s of fury (which, in every scenario except instanced PvE, is a pretty long fury timing. You have full fury uptime with just this one skill, too, which is impressive given the current state of most pets).

The Phoenix family has glass cannon stats, let's actually have those stats come into practice.

[Mell.4873]

It is a wierd pet, I mean the Wyvern is pretty similar but plays alot better. 

Maybe if we had a stun or interrupt it could be okay in PvP but positioning the Wyvern stun is hard enough. 

[Lazze.9870]

10 hours ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

Siege Turtle's bubble being awful

It's the only pet worth a kitten for a support druid in WvW to be honest. Brown bear being the only other decent one, mostly because it has the same sturdy stat line as the turtle.

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

3 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

It's the only pet worth a kitten for a support druid in WvW to be honest. Brown bear being the only other decent one, mostly because it has the same sturdy stat line as the turtle.

Doesn't change the fact that the bubble is still awful. 4s and it's stationary makes it very hard to use in general, you effectively give up your entire pet slot for the bubble because of how bad the turtle itself is too.

[PolarBear.3961]

Hmm or make the gale breath into the jade buster cannon (mechanist overclock signet)

[Gotejjeken.1267]

17 hours ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

Doesn't change the fact that the bubble is still awful. 4s and it's stationary makes it very hard to use in general, you effectively give up your entire pet slot for the bubble because of how bad the turtle itself is too.

 

You do, but it otherwise allows you to build in a lot of projectile defense where you may not have it.  Or add to your defense, like with a staff druid.  

EDIT: Stationary bubble isn't a bad thing either--if you are running from something you can just set the bubble behind you to have a dome-shaped wall.  Then either keep going or kite back into it, in both cases you nullify anything projectile based pretty easily.  

I'd classify the other three pets as useless.  Tiger doesn't hit anything, Pheonix is glass, and Wallow doesn't do anything.  

Edited December 21, 2022 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Lazze.9870]

20 hours ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

Doesn't change the fact that the bubble is still awful. 4s and it's stationary makes it very hard to use in general, you effectively give up your entire pet slot for the bubble because of how bad the turtle itself is too.

No, it doesn't make it very hard to use at all. It's also instant cast, something you should be grateful for given Anet's track record of ridiculous cast times on F2s.

You got a PLETHORA of other pets you can make PvE viable. The list if trash tier pets is huge. Turtle has its niche, and it is because of that bubble.

In short, don't touch the kittening turtle.

Edited December 21, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[Dadnir.5038]

On 12/20/2022 at 12:24 AM, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

At launch they all sucked, and after some reworks the only pet that's worth taking for any utility is the White Tiger, with the Siege Turtle's bubble being awful, the wallow just being a slightly worse porcine (in most scenarios, at least the F2 is half decent relative to the porcines), and the phoenix being so oriented towards dps that, because it fails at that, is not worth taking in any scenario in pvp, wvw, or pve.

Doesn't this mean that EoD pets are basically at core standard? Cats being good while other are... anecdotic.

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

3 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

No, it doesn't make it very hard to use at all. It's also instant cast, something you should be grateful for given Anet's track record of ridiculous cast times on F2s.

You got a PLETHORA of other pets you can make PvE viable. The list if trash tier pets is huge. Turtle has its niche, and it is because of that bubble.

In short, don't touch the kittening turtle.

Turtle barely has its niche though. The bubble doesn't really last, and the only other scenario it would help a whole lot in, wvw, would prefer the moving bubble so it's not stuck as purely defense option. You lose basically every other (even if it's limited) option for that slot. Either make the bubble not last for a mayflies adult lifespan or make it move with the turtle.

 

There's so few utility options for pets in PvE. None of them have a bubble. Buff the turtle.

Edited December 21, 2022 by RainbowTurtle.3542
Funny mobile glitches go brrrrt

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

6 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

 

You do, but it otherwise allows you to build in a lot of projectile defense where you may not have it.  Or add to your defense, like with a staff druid.  

EDIT: Stationary bubble isn't a bad thing either--if you are running from something you can just set the bubble behind you to have a dome-shaped wall.  Then either keep going or kite back into it, in both cases you nullify anything projectile based pretty easily.  

I'd classify the other three pets as useless.  Tiger doesn't hit anything, Pheonix is glass, and Wallow doesn't do anything.  

The problem either way is that the bubble either doesn't move, so you waste it due to bad pet positioning, with the bubble being gone by the time your group can reorient themselves within it if they can even reach it, or is too short. Often a combination of both. Sometimes my pet won't even make it back to me if for, whatever reason, it decides to start attacking despite being on passive so I can put the bubble on me/my group.

 

White tiger actually has some consistent defensive utility with how insane Aegis can be. It casts it quickly and can close gaps in pvp with the shadowstep skill. Is it better on offense than say orange tiger? No, but it does have some use and is a bit more spread out rather than just pure glass cannon, although there should probably be improvements to the shadowstep skill so it's not so clunky.

 

The other 2 pets are just not strong enough in their skills to compensate for the bad AI.

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

6 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

 

You do, but it otherwise allows you to build in a lot of projectile defense where you may not have it.  Or add to your defense, like with a staff druid.  

EDIT: Stationary bubble isn't a bad thing either--if you are running from something you can just set the bubble behind you to have a dome-shaped wall.  Then either keep going or kite back into it, in both cases you nullify anything projectile based pretty easily.  

I'd classify the other three pets as useless.  Tiger doesn't hit anything, Pheonix is glass, and Wallow doesn't do anything.  

The problem either way is that the bubble either doesn't move, so you waste it due to bad pet positioning, with the bubble being gone by the time your group can reorient themselves within it if they can even reach it, or is too short. Often a combination of both. Sometimes my pet won't even make it back to me if for, whatever reason, it decides to start attacking despite being on passive so I can put the bubble on me/my group.

 

White tiger actually has some consistent defensive utility with how insane Aegis can be. It casts it quickly and can close gaps in pvp with the shadowstep skill. Is it better on offense than say orange tiger? No, but it does have some use and is a bit more spread out rather than just pure glass cannon, although there should probably be improvements to the shadowstep skill so it's not so clunky.

 

The other 2 pets are just not strong enough in their skills to compensate for the bad AI.

[Matoro.9708]

Also, the charge that the pheonix has should stop after the first enemy hit but it doesn't, will use it point blank and spend a few seconds just walking back. Can ruin aggro and wastes dps uptime.