[Strength of the Pack] CD reduction appreciated, but could use something more; Some concepts.

[Vooksa.2941]

Since the reduction of Strength of the Pack's CD from 75s to 60, it's become more useable, but still not quite enough, being overshadowed by basically any elite skill option.

Now, of course, elite specialization elite skills are always generally stronger, but the issue here is that every Ranger elite spec covers what Strength of the Pack does in some capacity. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of how Ranger has more than one source of finding the same boon, it's part of what makes it so flexible; no, I mean that:

• Druid's Glyph of Stars, Untamed's Forest's Fortification, and Soulbeast's Dolyak Stance all offer stability packets with shorter cooldowns (if you land the strikes as Untamed), most with ways to grant this benefit to allies. Glyph of Stars pulses this boon, making it have longer coverage, and more resistant to boonrip. Ten stacks of stability is already a little silly, but with only 8s (6s in competitive), the benefits are rather fragile.
• Glyph, Fortification, and Dolyak stance all offer additional benefits, such as condi cleanse and damage reduction, that are much more unique than might, swiftness, and fury, which are each additive to One Wolf Pack's bonus damage, which doesn't overlap with core sources or group sources of boons.
• There are no additional benefits to SotP for playing a Soulbeast, unless you use it and then merge with your pet while traiting Fresh Reinforcement; there are no benefits to using it while merged.
• There are no group benefits for slotting SotP, unless you trait Resounding Timbre in Beastmastery, doubling up on swiftness and gaining a single packet of regeneration. This has applications in WvW due to the incredibly long durations, but that's reaching a little.
• The single source of fury means that Marskmanship's Remorseless is activated just once, compared to Storm Spirit, which could theoretically buff an ongoing multi-strike skill like warhorn4 or longbow5 up to four times.
• As a method of getting boons onto your pet, We Heal As One is a popular way of getting a lot more boons than just might, fury, swiftness, and stability onto your pet, and Nature Magic's Fortifying Bond just does this passively.

 

So, while reducing the CD from 75s down to 60s does help, Strength of the Pack only serves to provide the lowest common denominator for many other Ranger skills, most with lower cooldowns. This isn't to say that Strength of the Pack doesn't have it's place or uses, but it does mean that other skills and traits are an easy pick over it.

Simply reducing the cooldown even further doesn't really make this skill an interesting pick either. At this point, it needs more than just a facelift.

Here are some simple ways that Strength of the Pack can catch up to other Ranger elite skills, while still maintaining an identity as an offensive packmaster skill:

1. Strength of the Pack applies to five targets. This is the bare minimum, given how other than Spirit of Nature, core Ranger doesn't have any party-wide elite skill utility.
2. Replace the swiftness with 5s of superspeed. Ranger has no lack of superspeed, but group superspeed is still rare. Resounding Timbre remains a way to add swiftness to the skill.
3. 3 stability on use, and 1 stability per 1s pulse afterward. This helps prolong effectiveness, and helps protect from boonrip, while competing with Glyph for group stability.
4. Fury every 1s pulse. Not only does this also help protect from boonrip, but also theoretically activates Remorseless up to ten times, a true trait interaction for a powerful rampage.

Just these changes alone turns Strength of the Pack around, even with a 60s cooldown. That all said, it lacks the same build-defining punch that a lot of other elite skills have, both on Ranger and other professions.

________________

This part starts to drift into the realm of significant rework, but pet gameplay suffers from one, crucial weakness: the pet itself. Mechanist stands strong as a pet class, due to an extremely tanky pet, with an Overclock Signet to resurrect it from (an extremely unlikely) death. Ranger pets eat pavement in game modes like WvW, and Ranger lacks the tech to do anything about it for more than a few seconds with Signet of Stone. Part of Strength of the Pack's weakness lies in how little it does for the active pet, and how with no active pet, or rotating pets shortly after use, the skill doesn't benefit the pet whatsoever.

To fix this, two things come to mind:

1. Resounding Timbre now also causes Commands to heal your pet (4000hp, 800hp as a SB), even if at 0hp, and protects non-merged pets from damage for 1s.
2. Strength of the Pack now also restores all health to your active pet, resets the cooldowns of Beast skills, and renders the pet invulnerable for 5s (2s as SB).

The concept is, if you're bringing Commands to use with your pet, your pet should get to be alive to benefit from them. One second of invuln is enough time for most pets to use their Beast skill, and as a pet-based heal, it acts as a top-up for Soulbeasts, with SotP acting as an emergency shield, one that SB already has a couple of. The fact that WvW zergs is a death sentence for the pet class of the game, while Mechanist bots get to freely wade through the chaos, is more than a little upsetting, and hampers build diversity. I for one would be thrilled to have "Guard!" available without knowing whatever pet I use isn't going to get liquified instantaneously, and the opportunity to quick-refresh a pet once every 60 seconds can lead to some clutch moments.

_________________

So, that's my thoughts on the matter. Pets need and deserve continued attention and massive overhauls to be a real, recognizable playstyle for Ranger, and while there's much more that could be suggested, Strength of the Pack could be a real powerhouse of a utility for pet gameplay, rather than getting overlapped by other utility skills.

For discussion: Does the above, and the ideas behind it, make sense as a way to both bring Strength of the Pack up to speed, and diversify it from other Ranger elite skills? Would you actually use SOTP over other skills, for both damage, defense, utility, or healing? Would you slot Beastmastery and use pet builds, if Resounding Timbre helped make sure your pet was actually able to survive competitive play?

 

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

10 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

• There are no additional benefits to SotP for playing a Soulbeast, unless you use it and then merge with your pet while traiting Fresh Reinforcement; there are no benefits to using it while merged.

When you use it as merged Soulbeast you grant might to yourself. When used unmerged you grant might to your pet and your pet grants it to you.

10 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

• Druid's Glyph of Stars, Untamed's Forest's Fortification, and Soulbeast's Dolyak Stance all offer stability packets with shorter cooldowns (if you land the strikes as Untamed), most with ways to grant this benefit to allies. Glyph of Stars pulses this boon, making it have longer coverage, and more resistant to boonrip. Ten stacks of stability is already a little silly, but with only 8s (6s in competitive), the benefits are rather fragile.

Yes to the first two, but I wouldn't compare it to Dolyak Stance since it can be run with Dolyak stance. SotP is a great pre-buff on engage to give you stability and might stacks, with Dolyak in reserve as a stun break and additional source of stability.

I do agree that it could still use a buff or rework though, it's just a very bland "kinda tacks onto the end of a build" sort of skill when you don't explicitly need to (or can't) run one of the other elites. I find myself using it on Soulbeast more since the nerf to One Wolf Pack.

[Vooksa.2941]

On 12/12/2023 at 10:54 AM, Remus Darkblight.1673 said:

I wouldn't compare it to Dolyak Stance since it can be run with Dolyak stance. SotP is a great pre-buff on engage to give you stability and might stacks, with Dolyak in reserve as a stun break and additional source of stability.

Soulbeast is the only real twist to the situation, but the point really was that Dolyak stance is a 6-stab stunbreak condi cleanse damage-reducer, on a shorter cooldown, that can be traited as a party-wide buff. Soulbeast benefits from having the flexibility to take either one, but if I was forced to only take one, Dolyak stance is leagues better. Vulture Stance is the same, in that it also grants might every strike (the 0.25s interval is almost a formality), with poison, and traited for party-wide benefits, but the Hunter's Gaze and Potent Ally traits can substitute personal might generation as an alternative if personal might is an issue.

Like I said, I'm a fan of having versatility of choice, and SotP isn't without it's uses and value, but it really does feel like it's not so much a part of your build as one of the only things that fits in that slot.

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

5 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

Soulbeast is the only real twist to the situation, but the point really was that Dolyak stance is a 6-stab stunbreak condi cleanse damage-reducer, on a shorter cooldown, that can be traited as a party-wide buff. Soulbeast benefits from having the flexibility to take either one, but if I was forced to only take one, Dolyak stance is leagues better. Vulture Stance is the same, in that it also grants might every strike (the 0.25s interval is almost a formality), with poison, and traited for party-wide benefits, but the Hunter's Gaze and Potent Ally traits can substitute personal might generation as an alternative if personal might is an issue.

Like I said, I'm a fan of having versatility of choice, and SotP isn't without it's uses and value, but it really does feel like it's not so much a part of your build as one of the only things that fits in that slot.

I get you, compared to Dolyak or even Vulture, it doesn't feel very "elite". It's certainly not a build defining skill. As you say, Soulbeast is largely the exception, in that running it with Dolyak, and Vulture, it compliments both quite well. You can very quickly attain 25 stacks of might and get the benefit of two skills with high stability stacks.

In the broader sense I feel we could benefit from having some of the "missing" elites added to the game, e.g. an elite trap and signet for ranger. I don't know if this would perhaps also fuel a rework of underperforming choices like SotP that you only slot because there isn't anything better.

[Oahkahmewolf.6210]

Big problem with ranger is there's a lot of overlapping traits or features that ether do better than other.

For instances, We have the signet trait where if gives might and fury upon use.  Specifically 3 might and fury.

Vs

Clarion Bond which every time we swap our pets, we gain 6 mights fury and swiftness then there spiritual arrival which does the same thing but with half the amount of might and no swiftness. :/. Realistically speaking, there is never a reason to activate our signet unless its extremely situational.

 

Another example is Hunter gaze vs potent ally vs Sotp

You get way more might and faster might vs potent ally which gives you and your pet might when ether one of u crits. This makes it better in Soulbeast as you crit = you getting might fast. Hunter gaze is just vastly superior and potent ally can be easily supplemented with a sigil that gives might on swap or crit :/.

The only real benefit of Sotp is might generation and stab but mostly stab if anything.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then there are useless utilities on rangers  that needs to be addressed.

Guard - I don't need to explain is just irrelevant (Dolyak does a better job and even forest fortification both reduces condi and strike dmg by 50%)

Muddy terrain - main utility sucks, the traited one is 100% better.

I dont want to talk about the normal cantrips for untamed, most of them feels meh unless specific situations or game modes

Spirit of Nature is useless, there are ether better classes that can strip condi or convert condi into boons, this needs a rework or needs to gtfo. I can kijdna see GvG using this but I have 0 experiences that kind of field so I wouldnt know.

Traps are cool, they just dont do very much in Pvp/wvw senario, great in PVE and open world. Dragonhunter traps are just good in both departments of those game mode and I wish ranger traps were like DH's traps.  Spike traps need their damage returned in PvP and WvW.

 

 

 

Edited December 16, 2023 by Oahkahmewolf.6210

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Fun fact, it used to pulse stability:

"Strength of the Pack!" - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W)

• This skill was previously called Rampage as One, but was categorized to a shout, had its cooldown and effect duration halved and had pulsing boon application (instead of one time 20s boons on activation) added with the June 23, 2015 game update.

They then neutered it and ramped it up to 75s for years until new dev I guess discovered it a couple months ago and reduced its CD to 60s.

What they should probably do is make Dolyak an elite (sans stun break) so you can use it on any spec and make it 60s CD.  So just the damage reduction, movement impairing condition removes, and instant stab.  Turn it back into a shout as well as they aren't doing anything with commands, so should just revert all those to shouts.  

Then Dolyak can  break stun and instead apply the fury and swiftness that SoTP now does.  This would put it in line with all the other ranger stun breaks (lighting reflexes, protect me, glyph of equality, etc.) and also put SoTP in line with elite like Forest Fortification.

Because right now, Dolyak is WAY too high value to be a utility skill and just nerfing it without compensation isn't an option.  So, swapping it out for a more general-purpose defensive elite would fix it and also fit the balancing direction they are going in with 'bruiser'.  

[kiwituatara.6053]

Just add a stun break to it or give it pulsing boons like the old days

[Mell.4873]

On 12/15/2023 at 1:18 AM, Oahkahmewolf.6210 said:

Big problem with ranger is there's a lot of overlapping traits or features that ether do better than other.

For instances, We have the signet trait where if gives might and fury upon use.  Specifically 3 might and fury.

Vs

Clarion Bond which every time we swap our pets, we gain 6 mights fury and swiftness then there spiritual arrival which does the same thing but with half the amount of might and no swiftness. :/. Realistically speaking, there is never a reason to activate our signet unless its extremely situational.

 

Another example is Hunter gaze vs potent ally vs Sotp

You get way more might and faster might vs potent ally which gives you and your pet might when ether one of u crits. This makes it better in Soulbeast as you crit = you getting might fast. Hunter gaze is just vastly superior and potent ally can be easily supplemented with a sigil that gives might on swap or crit :/.

The only real benefit of Sotp is might generation and stab but mostly stab if anything.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then there are useless utilities on rangers  that needs to be addressed.

Guard - I don't need to explain is just irrelevant (Dolyak does a better job and even forest fortification both reduces condi and strike dmg by 50%)

Muddy terrain - main utility sucks, the traited one is 100% better.

I dont want to talk about the normal cantrips for untamed, most of them feels meh unless specific situations or game modes

Spirit of Nature is useless, there are ether better classes that can strip condi or convert condi into boons, this needs a rework or needs to gtfo. I can kijdna see GvG using this but I have 0 experiences that kind of field so I wouldnt know.

Traps are cool, they just dont do very much in Pvp/wvw senario, great in PVE and open world. Dragonhunter traps are just good in both departments of those game mode and I wish ranger traps were like DH's traps.  Spike traps need their damage returned in PvP and WvW.

Im mean you should read/use some of the skills before weighing in. 

Edited December 19, 2023 by Mell.4873

[Mell.4873]

Rangers problem is a lack of focus or synergy with alot of its skills. You are very much relying on something that is ultimately the weakest part.

Guard is a good example where pets were so useless and weak due to there low health using this skill was liable to kill them. Now it can safely be picked for some sort of tanking build in some game modes.

Even things like Signet of the Hunt was relatively useless untill they added the super speed to it, same with Signet of the Wild untill the Druid blood moon trait. 

Strength of the Pack is a fine and somewhat niche utility simply becouse it has 10 stability. This is amazing on Soulbeast for engaging in this CC heavy PvP meta. 

[Dadnir.5038]

30 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

Guard is a good example where pets were so useless and weak due to there low health using this skill was liable to kill them.

"Guard!" was amazing in the early game (one of the single best ranger utility skill, allowing you to stealth your pet and bring him almost where-ever you wanted, even ignoring pathing issues). Then WvW players complained (me and some friends might have abused a bit by sending murder pets on the walls of the keep we were attacking... Come on, it was funny to see a thief trying to man a siege engine being 2-shotted by an eagle or a falcon) and it was nerfed and eventually reworked into what it is right now in 2016.

"Protect me!", on another hand, used to be the skill that had the damage transfert and, indeed, it was hot garbage. I'd even say that in comparison, "Guard!" after 2016 rework was still usable compared to "protect me!" pre 2016.

[Vooksa.2941]

On 12/14/2023 at 6:20 PM, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

What they should probably do is make Dolyak an elite (sans stun break) so you can use it on any spec and make it 60s CD. ... Because right now, Dolyak is WAY too high value to be a utility skill 

Dolyak is insanely good for what it is, but mostly only because so many other Ranger utilities are so bad.

Months before Weaponmastery was confirmed, I theorized their "further augment the combat options for each profession by adding new tools to their arsenal and by lifting constraints that will unlock an unprecedented number of playstyle customization options" meant untethering elite spec weapons, AND their utilities. I was ecstatic for not only staff on SB, but aura shouts on Catalyst, Rise on any Necro build, and any legend on any Revenant build. We got halfway there, and I hold out hope we'll get the utilities half someday, because Weaponmastery forced ANet to confront the fact some weapons were in a completely different league, and do something to equalize them and find their niches. Given the same opportunity, it'd be great for ANet to have to justify why certain utilities see such heavy use, and others see almost no use at all, rather than just on weapons.

On 12/14/2023 at 7:18 AM, Oahkahmewolf.6210 said:

Big problem with ranger is there's a lot of overlapping traits or features that ether do better than other.

I actually LIKE that Ranger has competing options for similar things, because due to limited utility skill slots and competing traits, Ranger has the flexibility to mix for purpose, without outright losing out the way that other professions often do, especially for things like full stacks of self-generated might. However, because might is so common, both from skills, weapons, and traits, and from allies, high might uptime fails to be much of a reward for things like SotP. It's almost a baseline reward at this point. Like I said up above, even Vulture Stance rewards might per strike every quarter second, and it's not even an elite skill, and poison each time and stance-sharing to boot, but it does mean taking up one of our three utility slots.

Strength of the Pack doesn't need to be completely replaced, and other than pulsing fury, I'm not sure pulsing boons is enough to fix it, but it sure would be a start.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

2 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

Dolyak is insanely good for what it is, but mostly only because so many other Ranger utilities are so bad.

Stunbreaks? LR, Protect Me!, and Glyph of Equality are all very good and are not overloaded.  

You can throw in Mutate Conditions too as being pretty good as long as you get the vuln stacks off, which are pretty easy to do by taking a cleansing weapon swap sigil at the least.

Only the signet is dog water.

I fail to see how spreading out Dolyak's effectiveness hurts anything.  Having a utility only accessible to a certain spec be essentially irreplicable on any build isn't super healthy. 

Not that I think they should open up the utilities--Weaponmaster will leave for different discussion, but majorly dropping sPvP and WvW numbers I believe is enough to show that having everything (cele in WvW/all weapons) is not a good thing.  

Edited December 16, 2023 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Oahkahmewolf.6210]

5 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

Strength of the Pack doesn't need to be completely replaced, and other than pulsing fury, I'm not sure pulsing boons is enough to fix it, but it sure would be a start.

I just want them to add or rework some kind of ability to just instantly revive your pet. It really sucks when Mechanist has the ability to have their pet pop back up with better stats. That would make me happy as a ranger main.

As for Sotp, I don't thinks so ether, However doing any changes or adjustment can be a nightmare to balance considering the existence of SB functionality benefiting any buffs that go towards the pet when merged.  Realistically I'd fix anything and try to fine tune the pets out first before doing any changes directly which is what their doing, after dealing with the kinks and garbage AI that the pet has, then they can figure out what abilities to fix, rework and re-adjust.

They need to buff or do something with Re-newel like be able to benefit from the boons as well which ranger desperatly needs. There is currently no reliable source of resistance other than Frost Spirit.

The signet Trait needs to be reworked, opposed to get constant fury and might and I understand why on paper they'd do that. One for opening strike if you are traited for it and two to support, but like I previously stated, there is so many other ways to get those two boons without having to waste signet. Hell I'd be happy if they didn't get rid of it and just added ( keep the passive effect), it would make signets way more viable as an ability for game modes  or add an upgraded effect on use.  Like just point out, its more worth using the stone signet that trait-ed for elites than the signet itself in pvp and wvw game modes if you just looking to have longer immunity time to strike damage. (Lesser stone signet is 5S duration in wvw/pvp vs the actual utility which is 3s albeit it also comes with free toughness to you and your pet)

I'll take back what I said about spirit of nature, and I can see some value in it but I would appreciated if they didn't make it have a long wind up and a long CD compared to other alternative that look appealing.  I just wish the tool tips were more informative and showed everything instead of just the 1st page of it, ( for context when you over over a selecting ability it doesn't show the whole set of abilities, and the way they worded Nature spirit made it sounds like you get just Boons from the slam).

Some of the Traps need readjustment and a buff, spike traps are great in pve, but in wvw/pvp it practially does no damage and back in the CC  = no damage era they decided to gut spike, but now some classes are getting their damage back for some utilities and weapons and I would like that trap to get some of its damage back.  Adding a sprinkle of reveal would make traps more worth taking, especially if your are great with the mind games.

Commands should go back to Shouts, and realistically stuff like Guard functionality on paper seems awesome but  having a dead pet really sucks. This is especially crucial if you are running untamed and down to your last pet, as the pet unleash ability only work if its alive.  The only real exploit you can do is using Guard while your pet is out and then merging as the effect of 33% still applies to you without killing the pet.

Guard sucks, pets are like tissue paper in this game unless you go bear or something super tanky with a lot of hp to spare. I wouldn't know how strong functionality in Pve is like but I really doubt anyone looks at this ability and be like "dam what nice ability" vs the hundred of other utilities you can select

Sic'em I like it and I hate it Soulbeast make crazy use of this ability and I was not surprised from its first nerf if anything I just want this to be more than just a reveal with a damage modifier for your pet, but I honestly wouldn't know how to re-adjust or balance this without breaking Soulbeast. I guess what you say is "what isn't broken, don't try to kitten with it I guess"

Search & rescue was a pretty nice rezzor but again there are so many better alternative out there that do it better, but I guess being a basic utility means you have a back up way of rezzing people up.  Fun fact, Soul-beast merge makes you tp to the person to rez which I think was neat, its like a shoe horn version of guardian shadow-step rez. I really have no issues with this Utility, its honestly decent.

Strength of the Pack I wouldn't have the slightest of how I would improve then what other people suggested as you have to consider the fact that this also can ether buff or nerf Soul-beast in some way, If anything I would tie it in with the trait [Resounding Timber] Trait and give it some upgradable features to the Commands, Like extend the duration of Sotp along with S&R being able pick up more than one person, Sic-Em giving your pet a shadow step toward the target, Returning Protect me Taunt with a visual indicator and if guard would to be remain as a utiltiy I guess it would increase the DR significantly by produce protection & Resolution to the pet, heal as one would be able to copy each-other Non-Boon buffs like Moment of clarity, Aura's, Pet weapon buffs such (like Dagger 2, Axe 3 and shortbow 5), Spider Venom, Sharpen from Bristleback

 

Heal as one - I think its good as it is.

 

I can keep ranting and listing, but just to throw it out there, You even look at guides and see what people are taking, suggesting or even recommend for utilities.

 

[Vooksa.2941]

On 12/16/2023 at 3:00 PM, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Only the signet is dog water.

I'm only pursing this Dolyak Stance conversation since I held it up as a comparison to Strength of the Pack as a source of stability, but this is really what it comes down to: Ranger utilities' strength is that they overlap. The tradeoff for having multiple utilities do nearly the same thing is that they end up not being as strong as on other professions, but I DO enjoy that. You think Signet of Renewal is dogwater? It overlaps with Mutate Conditions as condi removal and stunbreak, with a longer cooldown, cap on condi number, and no self boons, but it doesn't translate that into self-vuln, passively heals, and gives your pet (or you as SB) three seconds of resistance and resolution. It also is GROUP condi cleanse, which Mutate Conditions is not, and 13 conditions is a pretty significant amount.

Likewise, Dolyak Stance's stability and damage reduction is outpaced by Forest's Fortification, but can't compare to Signet of Stone, granting invulnerability to strikes for 3-6 seconds with passive toughness improvement, but SoS doesn't protect from condition damage like the others do, protect from control conditions or break stuns like DS does, or give boons like FF does. Overlap, and trade.

Strength of the Pack stands out to me as the outlier for overlapping with many other utilities, but not offering a significant tradeoff. Self-might generation with a single dose of self swiftness and self fury is not a significant enough reward for Ranger to make it able to compete with Glyph of Stars or Forest's Fortification, or with Dolyak Stance, or Vulture Stance.

On 12/16/2023 at 7:32 PM, Oahkahmewolf.6210 said:

I just want them to add or rework some kind of ability to just instantly revive your pet.

This is why I said in my original post that the Resounding Timbre trait in Beastmastery should be able to heal the pet, even from 0hp, and give a second of invulnerability to it. If beast use is the point of the spec line, there needs to be a way to get the pet back. I don't think that giving each Command an individual buff is at all necessary, because each Command is extremely useful in it's own way (SB and UT can enable bears and other pets to be invulnerable while using Guard, SaR can pull allies out of damaging fields and up cliffs, etc). 

On 12/16/2023 at 7:32 PM, Oahkahmewolf.6210 said:

Realistically I'd fix anything and try to fine tune the pets out first

I can't really agree to this, given that Strength of the Pack is a Command, and the entire point of Commands is that they affect the pet. It's also why I sort of agree with their decision to change it from a Shout, because Shouts and Commands really don't do the same thing at all, but it's also why I wouldn't have made Mechanist have Signets, and use Commands for their mech instead, since it's literally doing the same thing. They're unlikely to change any of that though.

 

[Oahkahmewolf.6210]

3 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

I can't really agree to this, given that Strength of the Pack is a Command, and the entire point of Commands is that they affect the pet. It's also why I sort of agree with their decision to change it from a Shout, because Shouts and Commands really don't do the same thing at all, but it's also why I wouldn't have made Mechanist have Signets, and use Commands for their mech instead, since it's literally doing the same thing. They're unlikely to change any of that though.

I'm not to familiar with which dev worked on what, but I do know they went through alot of different dev from what I've been told.  Probably because person who ether was rebalancing or reworking classes didn't like X or Y mechanics and butchered it. Other the other reason is due to things like X ability had to much synergy with Y runes. Case in point, Shout were turn into command because of the rune that removed condi with shout made going shout ranger viable to deal with condi threat at the time.

 

But these are my guesses to the perspective on why they did that. Personally I think shout Ranger with that rune back then was fine and even help keep the pet alive.

 

Edited December 18, 2023 by Oahkahmewolf.6210

[Gotejjeken.1267]

4 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

You think Signet of Renewal is dogwater? It overlaps with Mutate Conditions as condi removal and stunbreak, with a longer cooldown, cap on condi number, and no self boons, but it doesn't translate that into self-vuln, passively heals, and gives your pet (or you as SB) three seconds of resistance and resolution. It also is GROUP condi cleanse, which Mutate Conditions is not, and 13 conditions is a pretty significant amount.

Signet is dogwater as it doesn't work when your pet is dead, and when it does work you are condi bombing your own pet.  The resistance also does nothing to poison since it's a damaging condition and thus healing your pet out of it is a non-option, not that directly healing your pet is a good idea anyway; least that signet does is force a pet swap, which is direct detriment to the ranger.

Mutate conditions is a full clear, which you can then: dodge roll (nature magic), unleash/leash (cleansing unleash) or swap weapons on literally any spec (cleansing sigil) to instantly remove the vuln.  It is second only to Druid's Celestial Avatar for condi clearing, and only second because they nerfed the full clear trait.

4 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

Likewise, Dolyak Stance's stability and damage reduction is outpaced by Forest's Fortification, but can't compare to Signet of Stone, granting invulnerability to strikes for 3-6 seconds with passive toughness improvement, but SoS doesn't protect from condition damage like the others do, protect from control conditions or break stuns like DS does, or give boons like FF does. Overlap, and trade.

Doylak stance is a 40s CD in competitive, a stun break, movement impar remover (chill being the big one here as chill / fear duration can easily outlast resistance), and no requirement to hit to reduce CD.  FF is a 90s Elite skill that is a good defensive burst, but if you don't hit anything in that ~3s window it's 75+ second CD.  The parallel here is both can be used offensively where they shouldn't be...Dolyak is a free pass to as no downside to just hit whenever, and FF you have to put yourself in danger or have an elite that is on longer CD than any other elite.

My original point was no other utility compares to Dolyak Stance, it's literally an elite on a 40s CD...much like Entangle.  The problem is Dolyak stance ISN'T an elite, so swap the functionality of it and SoTP and you fix two issues at once.   

Edited December 18, 2023 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Oahkahmewolf.6210]

4 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

This is why I said in my original post that the Resounding Timbre trait in Beastmastery should be able to heal the pet, even from 0hp, and give a second of invulnerability to it. If beast use is the point of the spec line, there needs to be a way to get the pet back. I don't think that giving each Command an individual buff is at all necessary, because each Command is extremely useful in it's own way (SB and UT can enable bears and other pets to be invulnerable while using Guard, SaR can pull allies out of damaging fields and up cliffs, etc). 

 I couldn't multi-quote while posting in an edit post but here it is.  My problem with guard you can achieve similar result without killing off your pet or be forced to using bear to do the invuln. You can simply throw out a Shared stance dolyak, or even frost spirit to mitigated the damage of condi with resolution, there are just better utilities to use . Maybe I'm wrong and im not seeing the value of this skill, and to some extend I'd love to just stack  dolyak stance with protection spam and guard on someone so they don't ever die for the duration of maybe 6 seconds having 3 different sources of damage reduction. I just think they need to rework Guard for better functionality or change it entirely or not have skills that have extremely similar functionality or design.

The only thing I can see guard having a plus is it doesn't have a cap on amount of people if can defend which possibly see it use in GvG but I have zero experience int his field so I wouldn't know.

[Oahkahmewolf.6210]

Also I like to bring up that natural healing should at-least effect the ranger too and not just the god dam pet.

And no i am not going into soulbeast merge to benifit from the healing.

Edited December 18, 2023 by Oahkahmewolf.6210

[Vooksa.2941]

3 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Signet is dogwater

Right. Okay.

• Signet of Renewal IS solved by swapping pets. You may not like it, but it does. It carries about as much detriment as toggling Firebrand tomes, Necro shrouds, or Rev legends, or any other state-based CD that triggers traits. It's a tool, an option should we choose to use it. We could also use Signet as an unmerged SB, then merge to toss those conditions, and bears have underwater skills to cleanse all condi. Even then, Rangers have a lot of powerful group condi cleanse if you want to get the conditions off the pet.
• You still neglect to acknowledge that Signet is a GROUP cleanse, whereas Mutate Conditions is not. But both of them fit on the bar! If you want to take both as an Untamed, there are worse things to slot than a second stunbreak/cleanse.
• Dolyak Stance and Forest's Fortification are about as "offensive, but shouldn't be" as Strength of the Pack is "defensive, but shouldn't be, as a source of stability and swiftness that lets you run away faster". Neither deals damage, or generates might/fury/quickness, or otherwise enables any mechanic that lets the enemy die faster other than keeping you alive long enough to finish the job, which is defensive. Defense is as important in aggro play as offense is, because otherwise you're a paper doll that gets swatted immediately by anyone who survives your burst, and that's only with range or the element of surprise. Forest's Fortification also gets CD-reduced by longbow's Rapid Fire/Barrage, and warhorn's Hunter's Call, by the way. It's not melee-only.
• Crippling Dolyak Stance by pushing it's elite-spec skill value into a core elite skill doesn't solve Strength of the Pack, all it does is force it to compete with Forest's Fortification all the more directly. Then, BOTH would have damage reduction, BOTH would have stability, FF would be faster with superspeed than SotP's swiftness, and FF's BASELINE 10s resistance and resolution ignores ALL impairment conditions, not just movement-based ones, and scales with concentration. Then Strength of the Pack just gets dumpstered as a lesser-skill all the same, the same way Spirit of Nature is dumpstered as a lesser skill than Glyph of Stars.
• Ranger's overlapping tech is a distinct strength of it's buildcraft, but skills like Strength of the Pack NEED to have a niche. There must be AT LEAST ONE scenario where slotting the skill, over any others, is objectively the correct choice. Even Spirit of Nature fully resurrects allies over Glyph's steady buildup, and if playing with Nature's Vengeance, does the res twice, which is available on HealBeast (don't @ me) and on HealUntamed. SotP has no such comparable value, being completely sidelined on both Druid, Soulbeast, and Untamed alike.

4 hours ago, Oahkahmewolf.6210 said:

I just think they need to rework Guard

Like I said above, the value of Guard is that it stacks and overlaps. If you wanted to be a tanky HealBeast in WvW, for example, Guard's 33% damage reduction stacks with Dolyak, AND protection, for approx. a 70% damage reduction for those 6s. Or, you can pace them, and have 56% damage reduction for up to 12s. And as a SB, you soak up the damage while merged, so as a bear with Defy Pain, you can just ignore the damage for 5s. I still have to test whether Unflinching Fortitude or Signet of Stone prevent the damage you'd take, but half-damage for five people is a very enticing benefit for a WvW zerg, even for a few seconds. If you're already a SB and sharing stances, basically every stance is a really powerful non-boon way to buff the team too.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

From the responses going to assume you are mainly talking from PvE perspective...I'll try to respond with that in mind, but I play very little PvE outside of open world stuff.

20 minutes ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

 

• Signet of Renewal IS solved by swapping pets. You may not like it, but it does. It carries about as much detriment as toggling Firebrand tomes, Necro shrouds, or Rev legends, or any other state-based CD that triggers traits. It's a tool, an option should we choose to use it. We could also use Signet as an unmerged SB, then merge to toss those conditions, and bears have underwater skills to cleanse all condi. Even then, Rangers have a lot of powerful group condi cleanse if you want to get the conditions off the pet.

Not sure how to respond to this if you think a forced pet swap is the same as necro entering shroud.  Forced swap is not solving anything, in any game mode.  Forcing a merge to get rid of conditions isn't solving anything either...when you could just take any other condition removal option that isn't a detriment.

25 minutes ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

 

• You still neglect to acknowledge that Signet is a GROUP cleanse, whereas Mutate Conditions is not. But both of them fit on the bar! If you want to take both as an Untamed, there are worse things to slot than a second stunbreak/cleanse.

Even in PvE if you are in a group setting, you are running Druid for cleansing.  If you do not, it's just detrimental to everyone involved.  Support Druids are going to take things like frost spirit and heal trap along with CA abilities to cleanse + give group alac without killing them or their pet.  

When I compared signet with mutate conditions, I probably wasn't clear--it was more a selfish comparison from a roamer perspective than talking about group play, as I do not associate either untamed or slb with group play / support.  Untamed has group quickness (in PvE) and Soulbeast has meager stance share, but that's about it.  So, from my perspective, the only time Mutate Conditions is really used is in roamer builds where you don't have cleanse from others--and from that perspective it vastly outclasses the signet--even if you straight up ignore the vuln and just kite instead of cleanse it.

As far as the two stunbreaks, for any spec (in competitive) you can have two stunbreaks on ranger that will outclass the signet (Mutate Condition + Protect Me, LR + Protect Me, LR + Glyph Of Equality, Dolyak Stance + anything, etc. etc.).

For the rest, SoTP does indeed provide fury, and thus offense with it is implied more than defense; as at the time it was made swiftness would allow gap closing, stability and fury for damage and providing might to a pet was a thing since pets actually did damage.  It was meant like Troll Unguent where you precast it as you start an encounter.  To top that off, the bright red glow was an indicator of 'offense', as the ranger a vast majority of time was running toward something after popping it, not away.

In contrast, Dolyak and FF are purely defensive utilities--it's just that Dolyak is too high value for what it is (in competitive).  It's probably too high value in PvE too, but the amount of group stunbreaks, boons, facetanking mechanics, etc. there it doesn't even matter...as it isn't used in the first place.

As for niche, SoTP still has that over FF because it provides fury and so makes it offensive.  The problem is with the power creep in the game, fury and swiftness don't seem like much when you have defensive boons + superspeed.  

For it to work as you'd want, then they'd need to do something like 10% increase in damage while it's active (instead of providing might to the pet), make it a shout again (as no amount of theorycraft on commands makes sense at the moment), and reduce cast time to something befitting a shout (either none or like 1/4 second).  

Reason I suggest swapping Dolyak to elite and SoTP as a stunbreak option is the way balancing for ranger is going--towards bruiser and not burst.  In that light SoTP has no niche as using it for defense IS outclassed by FF, CA form, and merged beast abilities (stoic archetypes). 

So, why not just move Dolyak to where it should be as an elite and instead make SoTP compete with Protect Me! etc. for stun break ability, as that's the only thing going for it if you take away the burst potential.  

[Vooksa.2941]

1 hour ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

From the responses going to assume you are mainly talking from PvE perspective...I'll try to respond with that in mind, but I play very little PvE outside of open world stuff.

For the sake of my credentials, Ranger is my WvW main. I play all the classes in all content, but Ranger has been my focus for the last year pretty much everywhere. I experiment and screw around with a lot of silly builds, but still crack out more meta comps for when the stakes are higher, but it's WvW that has me rolling my eyes at Strength of the Pack.

And for the sake of my sanity, I'm just going to assume that you didn't read my original post, or otherwise have an unreal hatred of Signet of Renewal and raging obsession with Dolyak Stance. None of the other stunbreaks passively heal health, and none of them cleanse conditions, so that's enough to call it a niche, even if we spend all week "Um Ackchyually"ing each other over what a "better skill" is even supposed to be. If I want cleanse, I'm going to use the skills that cleanse. Healing Spring doesn't even fit in the same utility slot as Signet of Renewal.

I don't need you to explain why Dolyak and FF are defensive skills and SotP is offensive, after I literally just did it myself. I was questioning why YOU would describe them as "a parallel where they both can be used offensively where they shouldn't be".

A 10% damage increase to Strength of the Pack is boring, unoriginal, and a laughable mockery of Sic 'Em, another Command, with quadruple the damage, half the cooldown, and even faster movement speed than swiftness. Even merged, it's 2.5x what you suggest. But no. I want Strength of the Pack to stand up on it's own, and not be an obvious competition to other core skills, much less non-elite core skills, much less non-elite core skills in the same skill type. Yikes.

Redefining Commands as Shouts doesn't fix Strength of the Pack, or Guard. The option for condi cleanse (or chill, I guess) with relics would be nice, but frankly, unnecessary given how much condi cleanse Ranger already has. It's the same issue as Resounding Timbre granting regen and swiftness, and the same as why "it gives fury once" isn't a justification for Strength of the Pack to have an advantage over Forest's Fortification. Ranger eats, drinks, and breathes fury. Signets and Survival skills can each be traited to give fury. WARHORN5 gives as much fury and swiftness as Strength of the Pack, with 6 might, weakness, a blast finisher, and a daze, on almost a third of the cooldown. That isn't the mark of powercreep, it's the mark of the game being updated and evened-out for 11 years, and Strength of the Pack getting left behind. There's no reason why it can't have a real, unique utility, but at this point even PULSING fury would give it a unique niche not covered by anything else, to trigger Remorseless.

It seems your particular bent is that you think every single Ranger elite skill utility should be sustain-based, but frankly, that sounds boring af, and just invites Entangle to be slotted instead, since it's the only elite skill that actually deals damage at this point. I want Strength of the Pack to mean something engaging with my pet, like all Commands are supposed to. "Boons" just doesn't cut it.

 

[Gotejjeken.1267]

1 hour ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

And for the sake of my sanity, I'm just going to assume that you didn't read my original post, or otherwise have an unreal hatred of Signet of Renewal and raging obsession with Dolyak Stance.

I usually PvP in G3+ so, yes.

Don't even need to be high level PvP to hate Signet of Renewal though--even if you are slotting this in WvW I can say with confidence you have not met many decent roamers.  It just lacks all value, same category as Empathic Bond.  

Oh, and Lighting Reflexes cleanses two conditions with WK traited.  Dolyak Stance also cleanses three specific conditions with no investment.  Hell, 'Protect Me!' used to cleanse conditions with Trooper runes before the great useless 'command' rework--but in the here and now you are right in that it doesn't cleanse conditions; provides a ton of barrier though.

Healing Spring may not be in the same slot, but point being it's a water field and blasting it with anything with cleanse way more conditions than Signet of Renewal, not to mention just standing in it.  The point there is you can take anything else instead of Signet of Renewal for your stunbreak and take Healing Spring if you are that scared of a condition burst.  

1 hour ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

I don't need you to explain why Dolyak and FF are defensive skills and SotP is offensive, after I literally just did it myself. I was questioning why YOU would describe them as "a parallel where they both can be used offensively where they shouldn't be".

Already explained it.  Dolyak is literally free to use whenever with no downside, and not even as a stunbreak--I mean it can be used to clear aformentioned movement condis (again chill being a huge one), for the damage reduction, or lastly as an actual stunbreak.  Too loaded, no amount of spin is changing my mind on that.

Forest Fortification you have to use offensively to get the CD down, you actually must hit something or be stuck with a 75-80s elite skill on CD.  If you just pop it defensively, you are kitten out of luck for a long time.

This shouldn't happen.  If someone pops Dolyak it should literally be defensively, like almost all of the other stunbreaks are besides Glyph of Equality (I pop that one offensively a lot).  Forest Fortification shouldn't require hits to reduce CD, should just be 60-70s and then can use it actually defensively instead of having to put yourself in great danger to use it a lot of times.  

1 hour ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

It seems your particular bent is that you think every single Ranger elite skill utility should be sustain-based, but frankly, that sounds boring af, and just invites Entangle to be slotted instead, since it's the only elite skill that actually deals damage at this point. I want Strength of the Pack to mean something engaging with my pet, like all Commands are supposed to. "Boons" just doesn't cut it.

Not my bent, anet's.  Every one of the elites IS sustain based besides Entangle and OWP right now.  Three of them provide stability (SoTP, FF, and Glyph of Stars), and Spirit of Nature's whole point is (badly) cleansing conditions, regen, and a revive--sustain.  OWP got not just nerfed but nuked in WvW and PvP as recently as a month ago and has been nuked in PvE for 6+ months--that should be crystal clear on the balancing direction here.

If it isn't crystal clear, then look no further than maces and google how many times they use 'bruiser' in sentence pertaining to ranger since EoD.  This is two years of balance direction away from offensive / burst playstyle.  

Anyway, 10% dmg increase may be 'boring' but it's all we're getting--again, look at how relics work, they are all rather bland increases based on situation.  They absolutely will not add something to rez a pet or do anything with it; devs have hated pets from the outset--to go so far as taking away a majority of the functionality you are suggesting here.  We had pulsing stability, had a way to rez pets if we were OOC, etc. they removed literally all of it.

So, we're not disagreeing that something needs to update SoTP from 2012-2015 standards, I'm just trying to put any changes in a more sensible light based on the direction they are balancing towards.  

[Oahkahmewolf.6210]

6 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

.  OWP got not just nerfed but nuked in WvW and PvP

You can blame the staff users and longbow users for that one. Thou it was much more bs in the earlier times when you can have it recursive loop with Vulture stance and predator cunning.  Took them a while to fix the interval.