Remove Untamed's Unleash mechanic and rework Hammer

[Marckan.9526]

Hammer on Soulbeast lets you pick and choose what hammer skills you want from BOTH Unleashed modes, this immediately makes Hammer feel sooo much less clunky and more rewarding.

Let 2 and 4 be your Unleashed Ranger states while 3 and 5 being Unleashed pet state.

Now you have two skills for CC and two skills that benefit from striking CC'd opponents.

Hammer finally feels like a weapon that was designed and tested instead of an awful mess of carpal tunnel because you had to Unleash between eash skill if you wanted to utilise this synergy.

The way I see it, just remove Unleash mechanic entirely at this point and let Untamed keep the increased control over the pet (not talking about the new F-skills, put those in the bin too) while also reworking hammer as stated above.

This might not be enough to warrant an entire elite spec so surely they would need to add something on too of it, or maybe not - quite a few other especs were given quite little new toys in terms of F-skills and class mechanics, especially the older ones.

Ps. Soulbeast hammer has been the most fun I've had on Ranger in quite a while - now just give me the option to also control my pet further as an Untamed!

 

/rant over

Edited July 1, 2023 by Marckan.9526
Spelling

[Mell.4873]

20 hours ago, Marckan.9526 said:

Hammer on Soulbeast lets you pick and choose what hammer skills you want from BOTH Unleashed modes, this immediately makes Hammer feel sooo much less clunky and more rewarding.

Let 2 and 4 be your Unleashed Ranger states while 3 and 5 being Unleashed pet state.

Now you have two skills for CC and two skills that benefit from striking CC'd opponents.

Hammer finally feels like a weapon that was designed and tested instead of an awful mess of carpal tunnel because you had to Unleash between eash skill if you wanted to utilise this synergy.

The way I see it, just remove Unleash mechanic entirely at this point and let Untamed keep the increased control over the pet (not talking about the new F-skills, put those in the bin too) while also reworking hammer as stated above.

This might not be enough to warrant an entire elite spec so surely they would need to add something on too of it, or maybe not - quite a few other especs were given quite little new toys in terms of F-skills and class mechanics, especially the older ones.

Ps. Soulbeast hammer has been the most fun I've had on Ranger in quite a while - now just give me the option to also control my pet further as an Untamed!

 

/rant over

Hammer wasn't to bad to control on Untamed, it was just a pain with Fervent Force since you would only use 3 and 5 then unleash when the enemy was stunned for 2 and 4.

Now it's more clear how to use. Staying Unleashed most of the then just switching back for break bars or 5 skill as an opener. 

[Marckan.9526]

11 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Hammer wasn't to bad to control on Untamed, it was just a pain with Fervent Force since you would only use 3 and 5 then unleash when the enemy was stunned for 2 and 4.

Now it's more clear how to use. Staying Unleashed most of the then just switching back for break bars or 5 skill as an opener. 

Maybe in PvE, but players dont have break bars!

[Beddo.1907]

12 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Hammer wasn't to bad to control on Untamed, it was just a pain with Fervent Force since you would only use 3 and 5 then unleash when the enemy was stunned for 2 and 4.

Now it's more clear how to use. Staying Unleashed most of the then just switching back for break bars or 5 skill as an opener. 

It was bad to control if you also had to use other mechanics tied to Unleash button.

Personally I'd just keep Unleash to swap pet skills, ambush tied to just weapon swap, combine the good parts of both hammers, remove everything else tied to Unleash and then fix the numbers and fill up all holes.
The sheer amount of stuff tied to that one button should not be allowed.

[Zaret.1450]

For me the biggest problem is that unleashed works both as a kind of holoforge/shroud and as a replacer for mirage dodge, on one side internal cooldowns, buffs and hammer skills look similar to how a shrowd work, on the other ambushes, that are temporary skills, wich have their own traits icd etc, that makes it very bothersome to manage, not realy extra dificult but bothersome, because you need to unleash for dmg, but maybe for boon strip too, or now for quickness, but maybe you need to defend so you leash or leash for cc and then you just end spamming the button  going crazy, for me id get rid of ambushes, i know anet doesnt want to for keeping "hammer identity" but seriously that identity is just messing things up, moreso now that all weapons will be usable, that is also gonna be one hell of a mess, but back to untamed, just make the 2 skill of ecah weapon set an unleashed skill, you unleash you have it, permanent, like hammer, then tie the boon rip and quickness traits to them with an icd and quickness with a weapon swap reset as it has now, now we just need to unleash once and we have the strip, dmg and quickness in an accesible button that wont go anywere, and we can manage better going in doing our neede stuff, going out, or swaping weapons for the quick, and the skill isnt lost, we can just see its cd and manage that. for hammer? just add it to hammer 2 and were good, you still have to manage things to go in and out unleash but its not a perma spam with unreliable ambushes.

Also PETS please make pets share boons with the untamed as a pasive or get a 5% buff in all stats whilr unleashed or something, those skills are far from usefull in wvw where pets are just dead bodies moving around, and in pve pets should be more helpfull too for a dps option, for pvp just make it a 2% increase and ready

Edited July 2, 2023 by zaswer.5246

[Mell.4873]

1 hour ago, Marckan.9526 said:

Maybe in PvE, but players dont have break bars!

Well in that case you would play it much the same as when you had FF, engage with a stun the switch for a big hit on a CC'd player. Now you can even slot everything in with the Unleashed form so more DPS. 

[Mell.4873]

@Beddo.1907 @zaswer.5246 I can see your points but honestly Ranger is pretty easy to play compared to some of the other Elites so having Untamed be a little more difficult for better sustain is much better. 

In terms of Raw damage Soulbeast will always be better but that requires the perfect set-up. A pro Untamed player can easily match them. 

The only real difficulty is committing the muscle memory of unleashing and ambushing. Everything else is the same as core Ranger. 

[Zaret.1450]

1 minute ago, Mell.4873 said:

@Beddo.1907 @zaswer.5246 I can see your points but honestly Ranger is pretty easy to play compared to some of the other Elites so having Untamed be a little more difficult for better sustain is much better. 

In terms of Raw damage Soulbeast will always be better but that requires the perfect set-up. A pro Untamed player can easily match them. 

The only real difficulty is committing the muscle memory of unleashing and ambushing. Everything else is the same as core Ranger. 

what i meant is that it is too bothersome for everything it has, unleashing and leashing for dmg, cc and to manage the dmg/defense boons is good, but mixing the mirage ambush and a shroud together just makes it bothersome, and the only excuse for ambushes is hammer identity, we could do without the timed ambushes, just making them permanent with the traits being the ones with cd, its just less bothersome to keep track and manage and you still need to be as skilled to leash unleash and fit the cc and dmg rotation

[Mell.4873]

13 minutes ago, zaswer.5246 said:

what i meant is that it is too bothersome for everything it has, unleashing and leashing for dmg, cc and to manage the dmg/defense boons is good, but mixing the mirage ambush and a shroud together just makes it bothersome, and the only excuse for ambushes is hammer identity, we could do without the timed ambushes, just making them permanent with the traits being the ones with cd, its just less bothersome to keep track and manage and you still need to be as skilled to leash unleash and fit the cc and dmg rotation

I think there plan is to let you ambush while unleashed off-cooldown but might only be for weapons swaps

[Beddo.1907]

3 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

@Beddo.1907 @zaswer.5246 I can see your points but honestly Ranger is pretty easy to play compared to some of the other Elites so having Untamed be a little more difficult for better sustain is much better. 

In terms of Raw damage Soulbeast will always be better but that requires the perfect set-up. A pro Untamed player can easily match them. 

The only real difficulty is committing the muscle memory of unleashing and ambushing. Everything else is the same as core Ranger. 

Making it slight harder is ok.
Making it straight up annoying to use, is not ok.

Unleash bloat isn't something you can just learn and problem solved. It will always feel annoying, no matter how good you are.
Yet again this is stuff tied or partially tied to one button:
-Ambush skills
-Pet skills
-Hammer skills
-Cantrip boons
-Debilitating Blows, Blinding outburst, Enchanting Impact, Cleansing Unleash, Corrupting Vines, Let lose, Restorative Strikes and Vow of the Untamed
Wanting to chain something is just annoying due to artificial delays and there is a few things that are wasted in the process.

[Marckan.9526]

4 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Well in that case you would play it much the same as when you had FF, engage with a stun the switch for a big hit on a CC'd player. Now you can even slot everything in with the Unleashed form so more DPS. 

There not a single worse feeling weapon than Untamed Hammer.

Having to push 5-unleash-4-unleash-3-unleash-2 just to push damage, how can you even defend this?

It's not hard, it's just straight up annoying.

[Arheundel.6451]

Ambush skills are the main source of sustain on Untamed, only source of Life steal which bypass enemy toughness//boons and only source of boon removal on ranger so...categorically NOOOOO to all those in favour...no chance whatsoever, like there are the game modes that people enjoy to play and not everything is a DPS race

Edited July 2, 2023 by Arheundel.6451

[Marckan.9526]

2 minutes ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

 There are the game modes that people enjoy to play and not everything is a DPS race

I fully agree that it should first and foremost be fun to play, that is why I'm proposing changes!

I love the idea of smacking people with CC which in turn empower some other skills- but in its current form it just feels horrible to play towards this synergy in hammer as you need to unleash between EVERY skill!

How is it that Untamed's hammer is now the most clunky feeling hammer on ranger? C'mon this madness has to end!

[Arheundel.6451]

13 minutes ago, Marckan.9526 said:

I fully agree that it should first and foremost be fun to play, that is why I'm proposing changes!

I love the idea of smacking people with CC which in turn empower some other skills- but in its current form it just feels horrible to play towards this synergy in hammer as you need to unleash between EVERY skill!

How is it that Untamed's hammer is now the most clunky feeling hammer on ranger? C'mon this madness has to end!

Not all specs are designed to be played in the same way: Soulbeast is clearly the DPS elite for ranger whereas Untamed is the bruiser, supposed to be in the thick of battle and where alternating between CC and dmg comes in full play at high levels. Additionally, now there is a "hammer druid" and people will realize it in due time, which makes great use of the entirety of the CC variant of the hammer, to an amazing degree.

Understand that Ambush skills are the main thing for Untamed and asking to remove them would be the equivalent of asking to remove the druidic form or pet merge

[Marckan.9526]

2 minutes ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

Understand that Ambush skills are the main thing for Untamed and asking to remove them would be the equivalent of asking to remove the druidic form or pet merge

You wouldn't need to remove them, just change how they work.

 

All I'm saying is that the weapon of the Untamed feels better to play when played on the other specs, and this cant be right.

 

What if Rifle was played best on Daredevil instead of Deadeye, would you not speak up then?

[Arheundel.6451]

27 minutes ago, Marckan.9526 said:

You wouldn't need to remove them, just change how they work.

 

All I'm saying is that the weapon of the Untamed feels better to play when played on the other specs, and this cant be right.

 

What if Rifle was played best on Daredevil instead of Deadeye, would you not speak up then?

You want to use hammer solely as DPS, but it's not a DPS focused weapon, it's build around Untamed for CC and DPS, only used differently on soulbeast and druid. The Ambush skills are great as they are and actually the new GM Trait - Let Loose, greatly benefits Untamed, as a 15s CD for ambush skills has always been way too long...way too long, and now the GM new version benefits rangers across all gamemodes and not only PvE...it was an amazing change and I don't play Untamed now without that trait.

[Acheron.1580]

I actually like the untamed play style as a whole, though there are pain points, mostly that the ambush skills have always felt clunky to utilize because they replaced the auto attack, and I wish that the cooldown on unleash was shorter than 1 second (not gone, I like having a buffer for accidental spam).

That said, if you removed unleash you remove a large portion of what makes it a unique identity. I really liked the flow/feel of fervent force rotations, but I entirely agree with removing it because it was a balance nightmare (utilities more than weapon skills). With it gone, I don't find it at all complicated. You unleash when everything is on cooldown to use pet unleashed skills, then out to go back to weapon damage rotations. If you are in a fight where you know extra CC is needed then you can save 3/5 for when your pet is unleashed. You still get MORE options as untamed, not less, and the hammer overall is still stronger on them.

Is it a bit clunky? Sure, but it's not that hard to get used to, it seems kind of silly to kill an entire class identity because you don't like it. The joy of so many different class elite specs (or at least before patches reduce them to nothing), is that you can find something that clicks with you, you don't have to love every single one. If you like hammer on anything but untamed, and you don't like unleash, then don't play untamed? It doesn't bring anything else to the table.

Edited July 2, 2023 by Acheron.1580

[Marckan.9526]

59 minutes ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

You want to use hammer solely as DPS

Not at all, I want it to be a CC weapon which damage relies on you actually CC'ing the enemy.

54 minutes ago, Acheron.1580 said:

f you like hammer on anything but untamed, and you don't like unleash, then don't play untamed? It doesn't bring anything else to the table.

Pre-release Untamed was touted by the devs to be a ranger spec where you and your pet would have more synergy as well as further control over your pet.

This is not what I feel when I play untamed, I feel the clunkiness of god-aweful designs that only make the spec feel annoying rather than hard. I just want to synergize with my pet and have more control over it, as advertised without having to fight my character at the same time...

[Vennyhedgie.5369]

Let's be real, Untamed is one of the Elite specs from EoD that clearly suffered from crunch. The spec did not have a clear idea of what it wanted to be. It's funny people are saying Ambush skills are the core mechanic of unleash when they were clearly just tacked on as an excuse for the devs not to make a full unleashed kit for every weapon. If I recall correctly, they did not even have Ambush skills in the first untamed beta, which means they clearly were not part of its original design.

Likewise, the unleash pet skills are shared between all pets. I understand not making a set per pet, since there's like 50+, but they didn't even make different ones per family or pet attribute (ferocious, versatile, etc).

Untamed just needs a straight up redesign entirely. As it stands it's just a slightly different version of the same concept from soulbeast mechanically, minus the pet removal, but at least for soulbeast they DID go through every pet to give them mostly unique abilities. 

Honestly untamed just makes me angry, it just makes me loathe how cheap EoD felt compared to the previous expacs. It's so lazy and disappointing.

Edited July 2, 2023 by Vennyhedgie.5369

[Acheron.1580]

Alright, but I'm curious then how reworking hammer and removing unleash will fix the issue you have with pet control/synergy? The problem is with the pets itself, unleash just gives your pet more to do, and in general doesn't even care what pet you have. I don't think your proposed changes will rectify that, and ranger pets have been a really sore spot since way before untamed.

You want to remove pet unleashed skills, you want to remove player unleashed mechanics, and you want the hammer to be rigid, which you'll be able to do if you just don't play untamed. If you aren't using any of their cantrips (and honestly most of them are very replaceable with something else), or their mechanics, then basically treat untamed as a hammer unlock for your other specs.

The one thing I feel isn't heavily utilized by the untamed spec (because there isn't a lot of content that requires it and it couldn't provide alac or quick at the time) is the tank aspect for when your pet is unleashed. When the quickness buff is ironed out maybe that will get some theory crafting time in the sun.

[Acheron.1580]

7 minutes ago, Vennyhedgie.5369 said:

Honestly untamed just makes me angry, it just makes me loathe how cheap EoD felt compared to the previous expacs. It's so lazy and disappointing.

This I can agree with. It's difficult coming up with new and exciting ideas for every class every expansion, it's a lot of work. But a lot of these especs felt really confused. Vindicator was a mess from the very start with the forced swapping of offensive skills on use, but then it's just a weird class that has a mechanic to swap between healing and dps on the fly, and I can't imagine a scenario where that was a good idea. Untamed I think started with a good idea with unleash, the idea that you and your pet are sort of sharing power. But then all the mechanics around unleash are really tacked on (The boons from the cantrips, the ambush skills) and once again a non-damage elite skill, which should be damage when used when you are unleashed and tanky when your pet is. But then is that maybe too close to glyphs? Honestly it's a bit of a mess.

[Vennyhedgie.5369]

53 minutes ago, Acheron.1580 said:

This I can agree with. It's difficult coming up with new and exciting ideas for every class every expansion, it's a lot of work. But a lot of these especs felt really confused. Vindicator was a mess from the very start with the forced swapping of offensive skills on use, but then it's just a weird class that has a mechanic to swap between healing and dps on the fly, and I can't imagine a scenario where that was a good idea. Untamed I think started with a good idea with unleash, the idea that you and your pet are sort of sharing power. But then all the mechanics around unleash are really tacked on (The boons from the cantrips, the ambush skills) and once again a non-damage elite skill, which should be damage when used when you are unleashed and tanky when your pet is. But then is that maybe too close to glyphs? Honestly it's a bit of a mess.

I actually like vindicator quite a lot. Even if a bit unfocused they at least had a very clear idea of "we just want to have a Dragoon, everything else doesn't really matter much" and rolled with it. I like alliance stance a lot, though sadly it got ruined immediately only one month after release because they removed alacrity from core revenant, which means that despite having half of its new Legend dedicated to healing, a dodge gradmaster also dedicated to it, and being generally a really good support, it's lacking the almighty quickness / alacrity, making it immediately obsolete.

Stupid boon balance ruining the fun for everyone.

[Acheron.1580]

I feel like the theme of each of the especs were cool, but the planning of them was flawed. I actually liked vindicator too for a GS user, but the weird swapping between luxon and kurzick (both in the beta and the final release) were really unpolished and poorly thought out. And it's really weird they have a dedicated healing concept (that you can at least separate from the dps side now), and then also gave it no "required" boons. And I just feel like the spec had way too much thrown at it from the beginning and it still hasn't quite been untangled.

Edit: To clarify, I didn't hate that they had a dps and a healing concept, but it really didn't make any sense that they were designed to be run simultaneously. While you could use Celestial gear, it's not quite like WoW where you have offtanks and offhealers where when your "job" was completed in a scenario you would be like well at least now I can swap to full dps with lowered stats. You usually dedicate one way or another.

Edited July 2, 2023 by Acheron.1580

[Vennyhedgie.5369]

13 minutes ago, Acheron.1580 said:

I feel like the theme of each of the especs were cool, but the planning of them was flawed. I actually liked vindicator too for a GS user, but the weird swapping between luxon and kurzick (both in the beta and the final release) were really unpolished and poorly thought out. And it's really weird they have a dedicated healing concept (that you can at least separate from the dps side now), and then also gave it no "required" boons. And I just feel like the spec had way too much thrown at it from the beginning and it still hasn't quite been untangled.

Edit: To clarify, I didn't hate that they had a dps and a healing concept, but it really didn't make any sense that they were designed to be run simultaneously. While you could use Celestial gear, it's not quite like WoW where you have offtanks and offhealers where when your "job" was completed in a scenario you would be like well at least now I can swap to full dps with lowered stats. You usually dedicate one way or another.

Oh totally understand. They really should just have been two separate legends, but I'll honestly take the current version because I can use the broken support skills (AoE stunbreak on a 10 sec CD? yes please) even on a DPS class.

But alas, this is the ranger section.

[Mell.4873]

2 hours ago, Vennyhedgie.5369 said:

Let's be real, Untamed is one of the Elite specs from EoD that clearly suffered from crunch. The spec did not have a clear idea of what it wanted to be. It's funny people are saying Ambush skills are the core mechanic of unleash when they were clearly just tacked on as an excuse for the devs not to make a full unleashed kit for every weapon. If I recall correctly, they did not even have Ambush skills in the first untamed beta, which means they clearly were not part of its original design.

Likewise, the unleash pet skills are shared between all pets. I understand not making a set per pet, since there's like 50+, but they didn't even make different ones per family or pet attribute (ferocious, versatile, etc).

Untamed just needs a straight up redesign entirely. As it stands it's just a slightly different version of the same concept from soulbeast mechanically, minus the pet removal, but at least for soulbeast they DID go through every pet to give them mostly unique abilities. 

Honestly untamed just makes me angry, it just makes me loathe how cheap EoD felt compared to the previous expacs. It's so lazy and disappointing.

I will agree it suffered from crunch and it didn't arrive with the ambushes just the flip mechanic on Hammer but. 

I love Untamed it's a silk my most played Elite outside Mesmer. I really loathe the Soulbeast playstyle, if you really want clunky then trying merging and unmerging all the time in PvP. 

Now I can unleash my pet, teleport them, unleash myself and start my massive combo chain. In terms oh hammer, it fine especially if you select the skills you want. The main complaint was you had to flip to get access to the other set of skills, now that is no longer the case.

You can run let's say normal 3, 5 and then the unleshed 2, 4 for either lots of stability stacks or lots of quickness. Looks like a well thought out weapon to me