Guild Wars 2

OGDeadHead.8326:

If it isn’t a pet swap mechanic, will that also mean that if your pet was loaded up with conditions and at half health when you merged, it will come back in that state?

For years they were unable to store something as trivial as pet names. It seems very very improbable they’d actually manage to store a pet’s full health status with cooldowns, boons and conditions. Imho beastmode in/out will turn out to be a full pet reset.

cafard.8953:

OGDeadHead.8326:

If it isn’t a pet swap mechanic, will that also mean that if your pet was loaded up with conditions and at half health when you merged, it will come back in that state?

For years they were unable to store something as trivial as pet names. It seems very very improbable they’d actually manage to store a pet’s full health status with cooldowns, boons and conditions. Imho beastmode in/out will turn out to be a full pet reset.

Yeah, so that is then both a curse and a blessing imho.

borya.2964:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Well, you can already do that, so what’s the issue? Making them proc on entering beast mode is only saving 1 button press.

No you can’t already do that, unless the addition of break stun, unblockable attaks, save/secure your pet, 3 entire new skills to the effects i listed (all in 1 skill) counts for nothing.

Like I said, you can already do that by pressing F4 to swap pets before pressing F5 and get those exact same effects. So it is only saving one button press.

jcbroe.4329:

Considering that you already listed 2 different builds, which signifies tradeoffs, as well as having to base an entire build around powering up a single mechanic, and sacrifice the rest of the build investment, on top of most of the things listed having counterplay, not being that strong to begin with, and already available on a 15 second cooldown anyhow?

You’re talking about builds, not me. Build a full boons pet is a matter of builds, the pet swap effects you’re talking about that you want while entering beastmode come from traits and lines you choose to pickp up, it’s not first mechanical. I am talking about the same traits. Besides, the lines and the traits we are talking about are commonly used and if you choose Unstoppable Union in SB line, it’s a very little investment. The builds i listed are not entirely focused on beastmode, it’s just some of the best tier traits on those lines, you can focus on a lots of other differents things AND have a very powerful beastmode without sacrificing anything, like, at all.

Since you mentionned the pet swap CD, i can see an issue here if entering beastmode count as a pet swap : i dont want to do the maths when i am fighting. You can take a boss in raids while drinking your coffee, but the proc of pet swap effects both on beastmode and pet swap with differents CD we’ll be an issue while figting another player cuz you will barely know when the effect you want will occur, entering beastmode or swapping pet, and i don’t want to do the maths while fighting a thief.

jcbroe.4329:

There are all these traits that give and share boons to/with the pet. Then you go into Beastmode, and you WASTE these boons on your pet that you’ve built, and the pet comes back out of Beastmode boonless.

You’re shoehorned into a trait to even partially refund the boons that are otherwise wasted if you intend to use Beastmode, and realistically, those hard caps you receive are a bad tradeoff for “destroying” a fully booned pet.

Obviously when entering beastmode you lost the boons you build on your pet, cuz you loose your pet. The same thing already happens when you swap pet except that the pat swap effects actually help you to build again your boons on your new pet. And the same goes with beastmode, you will just have to swap pet and build the boons again an if you don’t want to actually swap pet when exiting beastmode, bring a warhron and use WhaO etc.

jcbroe.4329:

This isn’t even a balance discussion, it’s a design discussion. You can’t balance a design until you have a functional design. Form follows function.

You see a design discussion when i see a build issue, but i won’t create a postulate from my point of view. I like you last sentence, it’s interesting but not ontologically true, but i haven’t got the english skills to talk about that.

@Borya;

You made a really good point that I hadn’t taken into consideration; that since pet swapping is also available to Soulbeast, it would end up being a lot of internal cooldowns to track.

I want to say now in case people don’t know from me saying it before, but I’m a developer myself. Balance and design philosophy study is one of my down time hobbies, which is why I end up having an opinion on it.

So okay, backtrack here. Looking at Soulbeast at it’s core functionality the way ANet designed it. We have a class who has a mechanic with 2 different swap options, and then on top of it we’ve built an additional usable mode for each option.

Lets assume then that we have perfected the base class. The swap options and everything that can be built on those functions are perfect.

Now we get to the new mode design. At a core level what does that new mode do? Well, on use, it removes some of the options we’ve built for the base modes in order to gain a passive boost and some additional active skills. Tradeoffs are good, but we need to make sure they are horizontal tradeoffs at a minimum.

Now we need to build the trait system that interacts with this new mode (we’re going to skip the step where we build utility skills, it isn’t needed for this theoretical, we’re going to just incorporate their existence into the discussion).

We need traits that interact with the existing mechanic, the new mode, and the new skills we’ve introduced. We want to build traits that enhance playstyles and mechanics that also have to compete against each other, but we need to make sure everything is designed in a way where you feel like when you make a choice, you’re choosing to add onto without creating the feeling of having a lack of.

To pinpoint it, this is where I’m disappointed. If the pet swap traits aren’t going to interact with Beastmode, well, the entire Soulbeast line is underutilized for the mechanic, weapons, and skills it introduces. The GMs are all universally underwhelming in that they’re incredibly situational and don’t seem to be providing much benefit to the situation relative to the expected power of the trait tier. The Master traits are passive and forgettable, and they don’t really tie into the mechanics and mode Soulbeast introduces (neither does the passive damage GM). The Major traits have 2 of the most mechanic and mode defining traits developed for the Soulbeast, and while it would be fine to have them compete with each other, because of the lack of the other traits in other tiers defining or enhancing qualities, it leaves people with the impression that they should be able to take both to augment the mode/mechanic the best, because they’re the ONLY traits that directly interact with the mode/mechanic and people want to be able to enhance active gameplay elements. And the minors? Same issue, passive, forgettable, they don’t enhance or augment the mode or mechanics introduced.

It might be too early to say anything is weak, in fairness. That’s why I made a hypothesis section, because hypothesises are not facts lol. But it definitely isn’t too early for me to say I’m disappointed in the design decisions.

Sidenote; the concept of form following function is very popular in the programming world, if you were ever interested in looking into it.

I don’t see why you can’t have entering/exiting soulbeast count as a pet swap. It would only proc the core pet swap traits if the pet swap is on CD. The Soulbeast traits that are triggered by entering/exiting would always function, but those like Clarion Bond, Spirited Arrival and Zephyrs Speed can only work if the global cooldown for them is at zero.

Weapon swap and sigils is in the same scenario, if you enter beastmode and trigger an on-swap sigil you can then swap weapons again immediately and get a different weapon swap proc from a different on-swap sigil.

To me it makes a lot more sense to have it function as a pet swap since you are not swapping weapons, the skill bar does not change, what changes is the pet, you are swapping from a pet, to no pet. The swap traits will function when you exit beastmode since the pet is being created (like you can trigger them from a stowed pet when entering combat) and getting the swap effects as you enter beastmode is exactly when you need them.

Changing the boon trait to copy boons to your pet when exiting would be much more useful than copying boons to you when you enter it, the boons weren’t created for you anyway. Also mainting boons on yourself is easier than creating them new for the pet.

Miellyn.6847:

Changing the boon trait to copy boons to your pet when exiting would be much more useful than copying boons to you when you enter it, the boons weren’t created for you anyway. Also mainting boons on yourself is easier than creating them new for the pet.

Why not both ways? It’s our core mechanic and a new mechanic.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Miellyn.6847:

Changing the boon trait to copy boons to your pet when exiting would be much more useful than copying boons to you when you enter it, the boons weren’t created for you anyway. Also mainting boons on yourself is easier than creating them new for the pet.

Why not both ways? It’s our core mechanic and a new mechanic.

This is still my favorite suggestion.

Make it the minor trait too though. Swap it with Furious Strength, and then add the functionality to Furious Strength (not gonna suggest numbers) striking a foe while you have fury reduce the cooldown on Beastmode.

Now the line actually starts to look synergistic to the gameplay style it introduces, and the first 3 traits are all gameplay defining (do you want your swap into Beastmode to be the augmented characteristic of how you play, the actual Beast skills, or do you want to be able to more rapidly swap between pets and Beastmode).

Beastmode not being a pet-swap CD is GOOD. I don’t want it messing up my trait CDs when I swap pets to do a burst combo.

Please, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease DON’T make Beastmode affect those trait CDs.

Khenzy.9348:

Beastmode not being a pet-swap CD is GOOD. I don’t want it messing up my trait CDs when I swap pets to do a burst combo.

Please, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease DON’T make Beastmode affect those trait CDs.

If it was made a pet swap;
If your pet swap is on CD already, it wouldn’t proc.
If your pet is dead (and swap is on CD), it wouldn’t proc.

This will already happen;
When you exit form in combat, it will proc swap traits.
You can’t swap pets in beastmode.

If you are using the pet for the burst, you are not in beastmode, meaning you exited recently and triggered the swap effect or you were already out and the swap will be off cd, or it’s not off cd and you can’t use it anyway.

How will it affect your burst combo knowing that?

It can only help with burst combos, since you will know when entering beastmode that you’ll get those buffs for your beast skills and burst. Wait 15s in beastmode, then exit, getting the trait effects again.

Khenzy.9348:

Beastmode not being a pet-swap CD is GOOD. I don’t want it messing up my trait CDs when I swap pets to do a burst combo.

Please, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease DON’T make Beastmode affect those trait CDs.

It wouldn’t. You would swap pets as usual in this case, proc the swap trait, get the pet burst, then go into Beastmode during the ICD of the pet swap traits, leave before the cooldown is up, then you’re ready to swap pets for pet swap trait procs again.

Simple cooldown management.

If it counted as a pet swap proc though, you could enter combat, get the pet burst off from the current pet, go into Beastmode, proc the traits, use Beastmode as a second damage burst, leave Beastmode, swap pets, have the potential to share the boons to the swapped pet with HaO, have that pet do its burst, then go into Beastmode on that pet, proc the traits, and go for a second Beastmode burst. OR, enter combat, pet swap, burst with the pet, camp that pet until ICDs, then have the branches of either going into Beastmode for the burst from the current pet or swapping to the other pet for the other pet burst. Or any variation/permutation of that sequence.

Having options only increases the amount of things available to us and makes the class more robust. Less options is just less things we can do and less gameplay elements to enjoy.

Khenzy.9348:

Beastmode not being a pet-swap CD is GOOD. I don’t want it messing up my trait CDs when I swap pets to do a burst combo.

Please, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease DON’T make Beastmode affect those trait CDs.

This.

As usual guys, be very careful what you whish for here. We’ve seen suggetions backlash a couple of times. If entering/exiting BM would count as pet swap, that would for sure also bring pet swap cd with it.
Again, think things through fully here…

OGDeadHead.8326:

Khenzy.9348:

Beastmode not being a pet-swap CD is GOOD. I don’t want it messing up my trait CDs when I swap pets to do a burst combo.

Please, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease DON’T make Beastmode affect those trait CDs.

This.

As usual guys, be very careful what you whish for here. We’ve seen suggetions backlash a couple of times. If entering/exiting BM would count as pet swap, that would for sure also bring pet swap cd with it.
Again, think things through fully here…

Except that it isn’t what anybody is asking for. It’s very exact.

Yeah, ANet interprets things poorly, but there is no la k of clarity in this thread, and nobody should be afraid of providing constructive feedback because “it might get taken wrong.”

Nothing will ever get better if nobody provides feedback.

jcbroe.4329:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Khenzy.9348:

Beastmode not being a pet-swap CD is GOOD. I don’t want it messing up my trait CDs when I swap pets to do a burst combo.

Please, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease DON’T make Beastmode affect those trait CDs.

This.

As usual guys, be very careful what you whish for here. We’ve seen suggetions backlash a couple of times. If entering/exiting BM would count as pet swap, that would for sure also bring pet swap cd with it.
Again, think things through fully here…

Except that it isn’t what anybody is asking for. It’s very exact.

Yeah, ANet interprets things poorly, but there is no la k of clarity in this thread, and nobody should be afraid of providing constructive feedback because “it might get taken wrong.”

Nothing will ever get better if nobody provides feedback.

I agree and feel strongly that this does not work well with the other trait-lines, I mean just from dinking around for a Hot ten mins it feels off. Looking at the other traits which are all either about your pet, pet swapping or just you having your pet it looks flawed? This is me assuming that the beastmode counts as a weapon swap and not a pet swap, which pretty much will break a good couple of traits. Yes the arguement could be that CD management is the factor, but that makes the class feel.. cluttered?

We now have beastmode which is a proc on its own, Pet swap with all the boons/effects it has and of course weapon swap? So I feel like this has made our class even more cluttered with this path, especially since you cant pet swap in beastmode. Beastmode has around a five or so second cooldown and if you need to switch from Smokescale to say Bear for some needed health/discount endure pain you wont be able to. You will have to wait until the cooldown is done, and if your in the middle of a fight ( from a pvp/WvW angle) you might not have the time to wait on that.

This feels like it was rushed in some area’s and then had alot of love poured into others, it definitely is the “Lets appease the Anti-pet rangers”. I feel like the pet and player together outside of beastmode, do alot more damage. This spec was not a “My god…” and I was expecting more Conditions, since it is a Condi Spec? But it sure seemed like we were not pouring on the condi, not anywhere near Rev level anyhow.

See? I you could swap pets during beastmode I wouldn’t mind if activated said trait CDs.

some great discussion here, didn’t read through all of it yet.

first impression: not a big deal, and I didn’t expect it anyway. There’s already so much going on when you enter Beastmode anyway. Adding the pet swap mechanic on top would have been overly complex.

We still get to equip two pets, and swap them out of Beastmode correct? This is all I care about.