The Pet problem, the Warclaw, and Beastmastery- PvE

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

Alongside Janthir Wilds release came a new pet- the Warclaw. While the Journeykin Warclaw is very cute, it's overall not that great of a pet in PvE where it has extremely long cast times on it's damaging skills.

 

The superspeed is nice for fractals or encounters like Spirit Run, but it's damage is pitiful when using it's offensive skills off cooldown like you generally should be. It's quite literally better off just autoattacking. This is despite it having one of the better "preset stat spreads", because it shares most of it's important stats with the other felines like the Tiger, who is a premier damage dealing pet. The Warclaw's fix is simple- lower the cast times for Battle Maul and Bop by half (or more) to see it go from semi-niche superspeed pick to premier DPS option with occasional F2 utility. This would especially help Battle Maul, which is an animation with the "cat wiggle" you see with real world cats, causing the animation to take an egregiously long amount of time- this can stay, but it should be greatly shortened, or remove most of the delay from the "wiggle" to the "pounce" if it must stay for thematic reasons.

 

Following that, we have similar issues with many other pets, mainly with aftercasts-  the drake's Chomp is one of the most notable examples, taking far too long to resume attacking after it casts Chomp, lowering the family's damage output even though it's not anywhere near a viable endgame pet. These need to be tightened for many of the pet families in the game, to allow them to try and compete with other pets and (ideally) become a more important facet of PvE non-soulbeast gameplay than they currently are.

 

Another large contribution towards this goal would be improving the Beastmastery traitline. It currently fails at doing what it's supposed to do (make pets stronger) and is only a "stat stick" traitline for Power Soulbeast.

 

To get the painful portion out of the way, Soulbeast should have it's own stat bonuses from Beastmastery seperate from an unmerged pet's. Soulbeast never needed 150 extra power or 300 extra ferocity to be good, and yet it has both of those and is a large part of why it is to this day one of the best power DPS in the game, only really being surpassed by the somehow more broken OP power tempest.

 

Beastmastery itself is a weak traitline overall for ranger in PvE. The only super useful traits are Two Handed Training and Honed Axes- both of which are poorly designed in my opinion. Arenanet previously had gone on a small crusade on these traits, removing cooldown reductions and making the traits less weapon reliant (even if they do still explicitly benefit the weapon it was originally for- see Strider's Strength), and I think this should make a return in some way. Two Handed Training (2HT), for example, could have all 2 handed weapons double the fury duration that already is generated from the trait. Honed Axes could cause Ricochet to start bouncing more again like it did in the past- an extra 1 or 2 bounces on a trait, as opposed to the 5 bounces the autoattack originally had.

 

2HT currently extremely restricts greatsword gameplay to a bad traitline only usable by soulbeast, and Honed Axes helps contribute too much to "Soulbeast Dominance". On the other hand, many beastmastery traits are nothingburger traits- Go For The Eyes, Wilting Strikes, and Beastly Warden could all be buffed to allow for more pet-beneficial Major traits to exist. Go For The Eyes could improve condition damage and expertise from your pet on blinded targets, Wilting Strikes the same for power damage and critical hits, and Beastly Warden could reduce incoming damage from taunted targets- all of these could be PvE only changes while giving beastmastery more of a boost.

 

Circling back to the "Soulbeast Split" for beastmastery, when used by a pet, beastmastery should have far greater stat bonuses or allow for an easier time sharing boons to your pet, if not both. 150 power, precision, condition damage, and 300 ferocity are not large enough stat bonuses to allow beastmastery to be competitive in PvE, and We Heal As One and Strength of the Pack could be buffed to share a "true copy" of your boons (instead of only 3s) and reworked to have the same active effect as shift signet on mechanist's passive, sharing all boons applied on one to the other (ranger<->pet) for a duration.

 

Even with Untamed's failure to truly be a pet spec in PvE, ideally these changes enable arenanet to continue not thinking about untamed's failures while also helping improve pets and balance out power soulbeast.

[ZephyrusSpring.5728]

The Beastmastery line has needed a redesign for a while.  Some of the traits do almost nothing, and the buffs it provides to pets are not mechanical enough to overcome the inherent flaws of relying on a minion.  I don't know how many times we need to go through this same loop of "the new pet is too slow" before we finally see the Zephyr's Speed trait get reworked (hint: it should activate on pressing f2).  As it stands, the marksmanship line is just as effective for buffing up pets as the beastmastery line, because the only thing either of them really do is provide damage buffs.

Beastmastery's first column and top row need to be completely revamped.  Your suggestions for fixing the top row are pretty good, but I'd go further and say that Beastly Warden should also make the pet Unshakable.  I'd like to see more condition damage support in beastmastery (in addition to what you've proposed for Go For the Eyes), and I want to make clear that I'm not asking that it necessarily be stronger than either Skirmishing or Wilderness Survival.  As long as its good or different enough to make you um and ah about which trait lines to pick then I'll be happy.

I personally don't see Soulbeast as some overpowered monster.  According to snowcrows its not even in the top 15 sustained dps any more, and it's claim to fame burst damage comes largely from sic 'em and owp not beastmastery.  Nerfing the merged beastmastery traits would only further weaken the sustained damage.  How much are you really benefiting from 720 raw stats anyway?  By my calculation it's about a 17% increase, which is only marginally better than what Marksmanship has to offer.  That is to say, I think you're barking up the wrong tree with this one.  If your concern is with the pets' base stats then you should ask for buffs directly to them rather than turning beastmastery into a mandatory trait line for pet gameplay.

I would certainly not be against redesigning sic 'em completely, I hate how that skill is simply mandatory for power soulbeast and yet all it does is grant a generic damage boost.  It's a "utility" skill in name only.  Guard and Strength of the Pack are also very weak commands that need to change somehow.

As for Untamed, the biggest problem I have with it is how it replaces any pet you bring with the Unleashed Pet. Any interesting pet-focused gameplay is squashed by this.  The only real solution is to get rid of the unleashed pet skills or make them conditionally available somehow.  I want to bring a wolf and make the wolf stronger, not transform the wolf into a green blob.  Untamed is going to continue to fail as a pet-focused spec until that changes.

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

12 hours ago, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

Beastmastery's first column and top row need to be completely revamped. 

I don't think it needs an entire revamp, Potent Ally would be useful if we had more ways to maintain the other boons on our pets because you'll have way more might uptime, which is one of the key 3 damage boons (might, fury, quick. Alacrity is useful but doesn't directly increase your damage output and in current year, burst trumps all).

12 hours ago, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

I personally don't see Soulbeast as some overpowered monster.  According to snowcrows its not even in the top 15 sustained dps any more, and it's claim to fame burst damage comes largely from sic 'em and owp not beastmastery.  Nerfing the merged beastmastery traits would only further weaken the sustained damage.  How much are you really benefiting from 720 raw stats anyway?  By my calculation it's about a 17% increase, which is only marginally better than what Marksmanship has to offer.  That is to say, I think you're barking up the wrong tree with this one.

Soulbeast for the longest time was one of, if not the single best power dps. It's an incredibly easy build to learn and it's burst damage is among the best, with none of the drawbacks of the others, such as bladesworn's pitiful sustain and vindicator's depressing 80%-50% numbers due to how it's traits are setup.  It is in need of nerfs, and it's high crit damage is just not an issue on other ranger builds. Removing the pet bonuses (the 150 power and 300 ferocity) from soulbeast specifically would be a justifiable nerf for power soulbeast alone, hitting a large issue with the build balance-wise, without affecting untamed.

12 hours ago, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

 If your concern is with the pets' base stats then you should ask for buffs directly to them rather than turning beastmastery into a mandatory trait line for pet gameplay.

The base stats aren't the issue, they're actually mostly fine (the power pets all should be able to crit cap in PvE, but that's about it). Beastmastery's buffs are just far too weak to justify using as the "core pet traitline". Buffing beastmastery also helps ensure any pet doesn't fall too far behind, as beastmastery buffs all pets simultaneously (which they all need and is what a traitline should be doing) while also preventing anything from falling too far behind (although it won't change the rankings much, just make them more substantial portions of a ranger's kit). The main issue with a lot of pets (beyond boons) is actually skill casting, as like I mentioned pets like the Warclaw have far too high cast times for their skills or pets like the Drakes have bad aftercasts that the pets really don't need to deal with.

12 hours ago, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

I would certainly not be against redesigning sic 'em completely, I hate how that skill is simply mandatory for power soulbeast and yet all it does is grant a generic damage boost.  It's a "utility" skill in name only.  Guard and Strength of the Pack are also very weak commands that need to change somehow.

Sic Em just needs a massive damage boost. 40% is not enough for pets in current year. I think as a command the skill works fine, it just needs some buffs to be relevant for pets, an increase to the damage boost and maybe some boons for the pet (not merged soulbeasts) in pve to go along with it (like might, fury, and potentially quickness). Guard! is decent for support builds if damage pressure is really high, I don't generally use it however there are scenarios where it does end up being useful.

12 hours ago, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

As for Untamed, the biggest problem I have with it is how it replaces any pet you bring with the Unleashed Pet. Any interesting pet-focused gameplay is squashed by this.  The only real solution is to get rid of the unleashed pet skills or make them conditionally available somehow.  I want to bring a wolf and make the wolf stronger, not transform the wolf into a green blob.  Untamed is going to continue to fail as a pet-focused spec until that changes.

Unleashed Pet isn't a huge problem in and of itself, the problem is it doesn't really do anything for pets. Pet stats don't determine their damage or condition duration, player stats do. If the unleashed state was changed to have direct pet benefits on top of direct player benefits, then it'd be a bit different- even just having Vow of the Untamed give the same bonus as the player (i.e. +25% strike damage while player is unleashed) would help unleash actually be beneficial for pets.

Untamed could also use some pet bonuses raw, such as stat bonuses in the same way mechanist mechs benefit from their mech stats. Heck, tie it to unleashing and have a 10s buff with a 10s cooldown where you need to pass the pet an unleash (in the same way you do it for unleash ambushing) where they are given a large portion of your stats for a duration, instead of just having 2 universal 25% damage modifiers in pve (only 1 of which applies to the pet) and calling it a day. Not super interesting, but at least it interacts with the pet.

[Aaron Forestman.4758]

13 hours ago, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

As for Untamed, the biggest problem I have with it is how it replaces any pet you bring with the Unleashed Pet. Any interesting pet-focused gameplay is squashed by this.  The only real solution is to get rid of the unleashed pet skills or make them conditionally available somehow.  I want to bring a wolf and make the wolf stronger, not transform the wolf into a green blob.  Untamed is going to continue to fail as a pet-focused spec until that changes.

Conditionally available, as in the condition of whether you or your pet is unleashed? Your choice of pet still very much matters unless you're leaving your pet unleashed all the time, in which case you're missing out on a huge chunk of what the spec is about.

[ZephyrusSpring.5728]

9 hours ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

Soulbeast for the longest time was one of, if not the single best power dps. It's an incredibly easy build to learn and it's burst damage is among the best, with none of the drawbacks of the others, such as bladesworn's pitiful sustain and vindicator's depressing 80%-50% numbers due to how it's traits are setup.  It is in need of nerfs, and it's high crit damage is just not an issue on other ranger builds. Removing the pet bonuses (the 150 power and 300 ferocity) from soulbeast specifically would be a justifiable nerf for power soulbeast alone, hitting a large issue with the build balance-wise, without affecting untamed.

I recant what I said earlier about the value of the beastmastery line because I was using unbuffed numbers by mistake.  The true value gained from those stat boosts is less than 10%, it's the cooldown reduction on axe skills that really bring the oomph for sustained damage.  Give it some more thought.  You want soulbeast's burst nerfed so you're going after the permanent passive buffs.  If Anet went through with your nerf what do you think would happen?  Everyone would take the small hit or swap over to marksmanship that's what.  Your approach would not achieve your goal.  Don't be a crab in a bucket, start by gutting or redesigning sic 'em.

9 hours ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

Sic Em just needs a massive damage boost. 40% is not enough for pets in current year. I think as a command the skill works fine, it just needs some buffs to be relevant for pets, an increase to the damage boost and maybe some boons for the pet (not merged soulbeasts) in pve to go along with it (like might, fury, and potentially quickness).

Sic' em suffers from the same problems as every other facet of this game in that percentage modifiers cause serious imbalances.  A 40% damage boost for almost nothing is still almost nothing.  Sic' em desperately needs to be transformed into a flat stat boost along with providing boons.  Players have way more stats and boons than pets do so by its very nature it would buff pets more than players.  As an example, soulbeasts typically run around with around 10000 total power, precision and ferocity whilst pets would be lucky to get to 5500.  So if sic' em gave a total of 2000 offensive stats it would be around a 40% damage boost for them but only 20% for players.  Chuck on some boons that players are likely to already have such as fury and quickness and now it's starting to look like a real utility.  I still don't like that design of being a generic buff though, I want it to be more mechanical.  Causing the pet to do a unique attack, or resetting the cooldowns of their internal skills would be a lot more appealing to untamed.

10 hours ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

The base stats aren't the issue, they're actually mostly fine (the power pets all should be able to crit cap in PvE, but that's about it). Beastmastery's buffs are just far too weak to justify using as the "core pet traitline". Buffing beastmastery also helps ensure any pet doesn't fall too far behind, as beastmastery buffs all pets simultaneously (which they all need and is what a traitline should be doing) while also preventing anything from falling too far behind (although it won't change the rankings much, just make them more substantial portions of a ranger's kit). The main issue with a lot of pets (beyond boons) is actually skill casting, as like I mentioned pets like the Warclaw have far too high cast times for their skills or pets like the Drakes have bad aftercasts that the pets really don't need to deal with.

The buffs in beastmastery are about on par with having 25 might, and is additive with might.  A phoenix with 25 might gets about 15% more offensive base stats from beastmastery, whilst a devourer gets about 19%.  Before we get lost in the sauce its important to keep in mind that the skills of the pets are more important than their base stats e.g. the devourer having the highest dps.  Starting with precision would be wise because soulbeasts already have crit chance bleeding out of their ears from the skirmishing line (50%).  Pets need to get to 2470 precision with fury, and most pets start at 1524.  The 150 from Pack Alpha gets them to 1674, so they would need 800 precision to get to crit cap.  The felines and birds start at 2211, so with Pack Alpha they're already almost there.  This is why I say the base stats of the pets should be improved rather than tying it to a trait line.  Putting another 110 precision in the line is fine but there's no way you're going to put 800 precision in there.

So precision in the beastmastery line is largely a dead end, what about power and ferocity?  Well we've already got a potential strike damage buff pending in Wilting Strike so it's hard to say how much more beyond that would be necessary.  A useful trait in the first column would be nice, perhaps adding another facet to Potent Ally would be the right place.  Something like 10% additional strike damage on the pet's basic attacks when above a might threshold or something.  Something that soulbeasts couldn't double dip on is surely a buff you could agree with.

@Aaron Forestman.4758 Yes thank you for the reddit quip, my mind has been blown.  Unleashing the pet doesn't do anything to put focus on the pet, it's actually a defensive trade for the player.  Even if it did buff the pet, forcing it to become the green blob unleashed pet heavily detracts from anything interesting you might be able to do with it.  Making those green blob skills conditionally available while the pet is unleashed is only the first step in realigning untamed to being pet-focused.

[Arheundel.6451]

On 8/23/2024 at 6:39 PM, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

Alongside Janthir Wilds release came a new pet- the Warclaw. While the Journeykin Warclaw is very cute, it's overall not that great of a pet in PvE where it has extremely long cast times on it's damaging skills.

 

The superspeed is nice for fractals or encounters like Spirit Run, but it's damage is pitiful when using it's offensive skills off cooldown like you generally should be. It's quite literally better off just autoattacking. This is despite it having one of the better "preset stat spreads", because it shares most of it's important stats with the other felines like the Tiger, who is a premier damage dealing pet. The Warclaw's fix is simple- lower the cast times for Battle Maul and Bop by half (or more) to see it go from semi-niche superspeed pick to premier DPS option with occasional F2 utility. This would especially help Battle Maul, which is an animation with the "cat wiggle" you see with real world cats, causing the animation to take an egregiously long amount of time- this can stay, but it should be greatly shortened, or remove most of the delay from the "wiggle" to the "pounce" if it must stay for thematic reasons.

 

Following that, we have similar issues with many other pets, mainly with aftercasts-  the drake's Chomp is one of the most notable examples, taking far too long to resume attacking after it casts Chomp, lowering the family's damage output even though it's not anywhere near a viable endgame pet. These need to be tightened for many of the pet families in the game, to allow them to try and compete with other pets and (ideally) become a more important facet of PvE non-soulbeast gameplay than they currently are.

 

Another large contribution towards this goal would be improving the Beastmastery traitline. It currently fails at doing what it's supposed to do (make pets stronger) and is only a "stat stick" traitline for Power Soulbeast.

 

To get the painful portion out of the way, Soulbeast should have it's own stat bonuses from Beastmastery seperate from an unmerged pet's. Soulbeast never needed 150 extra power or 300 extra ferocity to be good, and yet it has both of those and is a large part of why it is to this day one of the best power DPS in the game, only really being surpassed by the somehow more broken OP power tempest.

 

Beastmastery itself is a weak traitline overall for ranger in PvE. The only super useful traits are Two Handed Training and Honed Axes- both of which are poorly designed in my opinion. Arenanet previously had gone on a small crusade on these traits, removing cooldown reductions and making the traits less weapon reliant (even if they do still explicitly benefit the weapon it was originally for- see Strider's Strength), and I think this should make a return in some way. Two Handed Training (2HT), for example, could have all 2 handed weapons double the fury duration that already is generated from the trait. Honed Axes could cause Ricochet to start bouncing more again like it did in the past- an extra 1 or 2 bounces on a trait, as opposed to the 5 bounces the autoattack originally had.

 

2HT currently extremely restricts greatsword gameplay to a bad traitline only usable by soulbeast, and Honed Axes helps contribute too much to "Soulbeast Dominance". On the other hand, many beastmastery traits are nothingburger traits- Go For The Eyes, Wilting Strikes, and Beastly Warden could all be buffed to allow for more pet-beneficial Major traits to exist. Go For The Eyes could improve condition damage and expertise from your pet on blinded targets, Wilting Strikes the same for power damage and critical hits, and Beastly Warden could reduce incoming damage from taunted targets- all of these could be PvE only changes while giving beastmastery more of a boost.

 

Circling back to the "Soulbeast Split" for beastmastery, when used by a pet, beastmastery should have far greater stat bonuses or allow for an easier time sharing boons to your pet, if not both. 150 power, precision, condition damage, and 300 ferocity are not large enough stat bonuses to allow beastmastery to be competitive in PvE, and We Heal As One and Strength of the Pack could be buffed to share a "true copy" of your boons (instead of only 3s) and reworked to have the same active effect as shift signet on mechanist's passive, sharing all boons applied on one to the other (ranger<->pet) for a duration.

 

Even with Untamed's failure to truly be a pet spec in PvE, ideally these changes enable arenanet to continue not thinking about untamed's failures while also helping improve pets and balance out power soulbeast.

Soulbeast loses the pet so he gets the stats bonuses. So you want to play with pets in PvE and for that you want to destroy soulbeast in PvP/WvW yeah what about no?! Removing stats bonuses from soulbeast...I am just glad that a PvPer is in charge of professions balance

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

1 hour ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

Soulbeast loses the pet so he gets the stats bonuses. So you want to play with pets in PvE and for that you want to destroy soulbeast in PvP/WvW yeah what about no?! Removing stats bonuses from soulbeast...I am just glad that a PvPer is in charge of professions balance

Soulbeast already gets raw stat bonuses from merging with a pet. This is applied for every single pet, because the archetype also gives a bonus based on what archetype it is. The only bonuses (in pve) I think should be lowered or removed for a merged soulbeast are the beastmastery ones, and the archetype ones can stay where they are.

Also, have you ever heard of a competitive split? You know, the very reason I put PvE in my title, so that way people would know this is not a change aimed at competitive modes and making this change seperate from the competitive modes is entirely possible?

[Raven.8206]

Not the biggest fan of the new pet, been waiting scene Eye of the North to get a Raptor ranger pet and for any kind of Skelk since the Char can tame them.... 

[Lazze.9870]

On 8/27/2024 at 3:05 AM, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

Untamed is going to continue to fail as a pet-focused spec until that changes.

Who cares? Or rather, that's obvious. But why should we care? It isn't a "pet focused" spec anyway. Giving us control over the pet skills is a result of wanting the unleash skills to be there, not the other way around.

Edited September 2 by Lazze.9870

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

19 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

Who cares? Or rather, that's obvious. But why should we care? It isn't a "pet focused" spec anyway. Giving us control over the pet skills is a result of wanting the unleash skills to be there, not the other way around.

What is untamed's "spec identity", then? Don't say brawler or bruiser, that's a generic playstyle, not spec identity. What does untamed truly offer over other elite specializations and core?

[Lazze.9870]

On 9/3/2024 at 6:04 AM, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

What is untamed's "spec identity", then? Don't say brawler or bruiser, that's a generic playstyle, not spec identity. What does untamed truly offer over other elite specializations and core?

Unleashed attacks and boon rips. Nature toxins/decay and/or Urgoz if you wanna connect it to lore. It was also clearly initially built with traits focused around hard CCs (as opposed to druid's more soft CCs) to play into the hammer stuff, but they went a bit away with it. In return we got aoe quickness as something unique to that spec.

Dont' say brawler or bruiser? I'm not. Anet clearly wanted it to be, but they dropped that ball on release and never picked it up again. Sort of, they are still clinging on to that one GM trait that no one ever runs. Soulbeast is still the closest we have to a functioning bruiser.

That doesn't make Untamed a "pet spec" any more than core ranger already is. Untamed has full control over the normal pet skills because it wouldn't make sense to take away two F skills when going from unleashed pet to unleashed ranger. The reason core doesnt' have the same UI and control is because Anet doesn't care/is too lazy/still thinks core ranger should be less "complicated" (or maybe they feel it Untamed would feel like a lesser spec; the solution to that would obviously be to dive deeper into the boon rip and unleash mechanic, kind of like spellbreaker with its boon rips and full counter). There is no good reason why those controls shouldn't/couldn't be there for core as well.

The only reason you're calling untamed a pet spec is because of pet controls that only exists on untamed because they wanted the unleash skills on the pet. Pet controls that have no reason not to exist on core ranger and by extension the two other elite specs. Nothing about the spec otherwise makes it a "pet spec". If that's a spec identity to you, then that's truly an idiotic "spec identity". A pet spec should improve the pet further than what core does, untamed only does that because of controls which arguably shouldn't be unique to it and because of the additional skills (which again is more about unleashing than necessarily improving the pet).

Or, look at it this way: how come Untamed is still a decent spec for large scale WvW or GvG despite the pet literally being deadweight? Because of unleashed weapon attacks and the boonrip. In contrast, what is mechanist with a dead mech on cooldown and no signet to revive it? Literally a worse core engie.

Or, if they gave core the same pet control (which they easily could and people have asked for in the past), would you still consider untamed to be "the pet spec" because the pet also has flipover skills (unleash)?

A better "pet spec" would be to rework beastmastery as a traitline, give core the same pet controls and make a core F5 tied directly into improving the pet in some way, which would then be lost with any of the elite specs (giving elite specs a natural trade-off that doesn't feel bad). Then core ranger would act as the actual "pet spec", with the other specs trading stronger pets for whatever the elite specs offer. That's just based on what we have now, an even better situation would have been core to have an entirely different mechanic and then have a mechanist-like elite spec to fullfill the beastmaster fantasy - but that's outside the scope.

Edited September 6 by Lazze.9870

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

6 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

Unleashed attacks and boon rips. Nature toxins/decay and/or Urgoz if you wanna connect it to lore. 

Unleashed attacks aren't really a great thing to have as a standalone identity for an elite specialization. It's a grand total of 12 skills (9 weapons and 3 for pets) with only 5 of them being available at any given point, with many of them not being super standout compared to their base weapon's skills. The pet unleash effects are situational at best as well.

 

Boonrip also isn't enough to contribute to a "spec identity". That's a role, not an elite spec concept. If boonrip is as significant a portion of untamed's identity as you think it is, then virtuoso's spec identity is range.

6 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

That doesn't make Untamed a "pet spec" any more than core ranger already is. Untamed has full control over the normal pet skills because it wouldn't make sense to take away two F skills when going from unleashed pet to unleashed ranger. The reason core doesnt' have the same UI and control is because Anet doesn't care/is too lazy/still thinks core ranger should be less "complicated" (or maybe they feel it Untamed would feel like a lesser spec; the solution to that would obviously be to dive deeper into the boon rip and unleash mechanic, kind of like spellbreaker with its boon rips and full counter). There is no good reason why those controls shouldn't/couldn't be there for core as well.

Untamed is ranger's per elite specialization because of the extra control pets are afforded and extra modifiers on the skills it gains through traits. It's a meager one at best, which is where I take issue with it. I do agree that full pet control should be applied to core ranger (as it makes the class much more consistent and helps identify under or overtuned skills they don't change due to semi-inconsistent pet AI (think drake tail swipe- incredibly strong during its peak, not nerfed due to chaotic environments making it hard to tell when the drake would swipe until after untamed made it both even more OP by making it more consistent), but as it stands Untamed does far more for pets than even beastmastery, which is depressing.

 

Also, core ranger is the pet profession. With core+ especs already existing its not entirely out of the picture that ranger would (and in my opinion should) have a pet+ spec, which Untamed was marketed (such as during the reveal trailer and the preview livestream for untamed) as such.

6 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

The only reason you're calling untamed a pet spec is because of pet controls that only exists on untamed because they wanted the unleash skills on the pet. Pet controls that have no reason not to exist on core ranger and by extension the two other elite specs. Nothing about the spec otherwise makes it a "pet spec". If that's a spec identity to you, then that's truly an idiotic "spec identity". A pet spec to be would improve the pet further than what core does, untamed only does that because of controls which arguably shouldn't be unique to it and because of the additional skills (which again is more about unleashing than necessarily improving the pet).

Untamed attempts to do this by improving the consistency of attacks (both with player timed casts of their non-beast skills and the admittedly good venomous outburst shadowstep) and pet damage (with ferocious symbiosis). It mostly fails at making the pet stronger, it just made them more consistent. Unleash states and unleash ambushes just aren't strong enough- they had to effectively brute force the issue by making ambushes crazy overtuned.

6 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

Or, look at it this way: how come Untamed is still a decent spec for large scale WvW or GvG despite the pet literally being deadweight? Because of unleashed weapon attacks and the boonrip. In contrast, what is mechanist with a dead mech on cooldown and no signet to revive it? Literally a worse core engie.

Because something can conceptually fail but still be given one or two tools to succeed in spite of it's failings. Give just about anything boonrip/corrupt and a bubble and it can find a home in at least some wvw zergs.

6 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

Or, if they gave core the same pet control (which they easily could and people have asked for in the past), would you still consider untamed to be "the pet spec" because the pet also has flipover skills (unleash)?

Yes, because it's the elite spec that tries to improve the pet in multiple ways- consistency via unlocking F1/F3 (even if those should be baseline) and venomous outburst as well as damage via ferocious symbiosis. It fails at making them super substantial (the ranger player wouldn't functionally care if they just had a bubble button, another shadowstep, and boonrip without the pet).

6 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

A better "pet spec" would be to rework beastmastery as a traitline, give core the same pet controls and make a core F5 tied directly into improving the pet in some way, which would then be lost with any of the elite specs (giving elite specs a natural trade-off that doesn't feel bad). Then core ranger would act as the actual "pet spec", with the other specs trading stronger pets for whatever the elite specs offer. That's just based on what we have now, an even better situation would have been core to have an entirely different mechanic and then have a mechanist-like elite spec to fullfill the beastmaster fantasy - but that's outside the scope.

That's literally just another elite specialization, which conceptually overlaps too much with beastmastery and they won't ever change beastmastery to be anything close to what you're suggesting. I wouldn't necessarily mind getting beastmastery changed in PvE, that's what most of the original post was about, but you're suggesting overkill for a core traitline.

[Lazze.9870]

On 9/3/2024 at 6:58 PM, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

That's literally just another elite specialization, which conceptually overlaps too much with beastmastery and they won't ever change beastmastery to be anything close to what you're suggesting. I wouldn't necessarily mind getting beastmastery changed in PvE, that's what most of the original post was about, but you're suggesting overkill for a core traitline.

I haven't even suggested anything specific beyond giving core ranger an F5, and I'm going overkill? It says a thing or two about how stuck you are in your little bubble where Untamed NEEDS to be the pet spec for whatever reason.

It's not overkill to give core ranger an F5 that is 100 % benefical to the pet. It's something it arguably needs. Core ranger is abysmal, and if you think the identity of untamed is to be the "pet spec", then what on earth is core ranger supposed to be? Core ranger is the actual pet spec. It's the only thing it has. You can't argue it. The other elite specs either derives from it (soulbeast and untamed) or sidesteps it (druid). 

And to be frank, the reason Anet doesn't double down on the pet is because it is an absolute garbage mechanic to begin with. If you gave them a do-over, I doubt they would go with the pet as the baseline class mechanic. As an elite spec, sure, but when they openly have said that soulbeast was a kitten to make work, it speaks volumes of how bothersome it is to design for. And we all know the AI is crap.

 

On 9/3/2024 at 6:58 PM, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

Boonrip also isn't enough to contribute to a "spec identity". That's a role, not an elite spec concept. If boonrip is as significant a portion of untamed's identity as you think it is, then virtuoso's spec identity is range.

It's funny how you're making up your own rules for what incompasses an "identity", just so you can call untamed a pet spec. To me, the unleash abilities combined with the flavor and the addition of boon rips and more focus on hard CC instead of soft CC is 100 % an identity. Trying to draw a hard line between identity and role is kittening idiotic btw. Those are natural soft lines in GW2.

The rest of your comment is hardly worth replying to. Untamed isn't a pet spec. Extra control that they easily could have put on to every single ranger spec including core without any hinderence doesn't make Untamed a pet spec. Those controls are there ONLY because of the unleashed skills. Because they wanted to spread out the unleash juggling between both pet and ranger, they couldn't just do with the F2 flipover. 

"Because something can conceptually fail but still be given one or two tools to succeed in spite of it's failings. Give just about anything boonrip/corrupt and a bubble and it can find a home in at least some wvw zergs."

The boonrip isn't what makes untamed tolerable in a zerg. It's the unleash attacks (and previously the addition of hammer, but I think it's fair to say that is still a part of the untamed identity regardless of the weapon mastery). And in GvGs you have the ward skill as well. The boon rips are just a very nice bonus. 
And conceptually fail? HAHA. You're so stuck with this idea that untamed has to be a pet spec, that you don't even see the irony in that comment. Untamed is a conceptual failure because you're hardbent on treating like it's some sort of a pet spec because of controls people have asked core ranger to have since day 1 (when, for the 100th time, those controls are there as a result of fleshing out the unleash mechanic, not the pet itself). Core ranger is a pet spec. Mechanist is a pet spec. Untamed is it own thing built on top of a pet class. It is not a failed beastmaster spec.

Edited September 8 by Lazze.9870