Guild Wars 2

The Beastly Warden trait (pet taunt on F2) has a 15s cooldown. The only pets which have such a low cooldown on their F2 skill are:

Arctodus, Raven, White Raven, Hawk and Eagle.

So the best pet for the job seems to be the Arctodus. However, considering the traitline comes with a 20% reduction on pet skills cooldown, the Arctodus F2 cooldown will be 12s. Which means the Arctodus isn’t very good for it, since you won’t know if the trait is off cooldown yet while the Arctodus is ready.

The next in line (that’s not a weak bird) is the Drakehound with a 20s cooldown (16s traited). His F2 ability causes Immobilize, which could both be awesome or very bad in combination with Beastly Warden.

Considering this, for the sake of Arctodus, I think the Beastly Warden cooldown should be 12s.

If you take a look at the F2 skill on Arctodus, it is quite weak mate. Plus it has a 1.75s channel. The Arctodus is quite tanky though so it has that in its favour.

I will be using this trait with the Hawk for sure, a 4.8s CD with 0.5s activation time means you can spam this off CD to get the damage and two long bleeds, with every 3rd activation getting the Taunt as well. Expertise training would be good for this. Birds are quite glassy though, but they also have 50% uptime of swiftness, helping them land a lot of attacks.

If you want it to be perfect, I think the Ravens are right there because 18s x 0.8 = 14.4s which is very close to BW’s ICD. Plus you get the blind to reduce the actual damage you take.

Each to their own though eh?

huh? the cooldown of Beastly Warden is 15s. you can achieve this with most F2’s and the new Loud Whistle. choosing a sub-15s F2 wont maximize BW.

it’s interesting how Beastly Warden will interact with other CC like fear and immobilize. will the target require two stunbreaks on wolf’s F2? or will he need a stunbreak and a condi cleanse on the hound’s f2?

if one stunbreak gets rid of both cc’s (taunt + fear for example), then it may be pointless to use pets with a pbaoe CC. instead, we can branch out with other pets. from testing, birds are by far the hardest hitting pets on moving targets. so I was thinking rolling with two birds which would both have a low enough F2 CD in addition to hitting like trucks.

alternatively, we can go for fern hound and blue moa + compassion training. Moa’s heal becomes 4200 over 3 seconds, and the hound’s becomes 1350 instant + 1700 over 10s. the pet’s regen is 174 with compassion training + SoW 119 (settler’s ammy), which gives us almost 300 HPS.

I disagree…

Because the cooldown has absolutely no association with Arctodus, and if you kept your idea going, you’d ended at a statement of
“For the sake of Hawks, reduce it to 6 seconds.”

So it’s like saying… Reduce the swap of ranger weapons to 6 seconds because Skirmishing traits have 6 seconds duration <and I want to have 100% uptime>
So… Why would you reduce the cooldown, again?
Isn’t it because you want ? This game should be made mostly around “balance and gameplay”, just so you know.

Reeeeeeef Drake.
Taunt and confusion, oh my.

Taneru.2736:

Reeeeeeef Drake.
Taunt and confusion, oh my.

Too bad pets dont have condi damage… It will tick for 100… Ohmy…

StickerHappy.8052:

Taneru.2736:

Reeeeeeef Drake.
Taunt and confusion, oh my.

Too bad pets dont have condi damage… It will tick for 100… Ohmy…

Stack might on the pet then. Full stack + expertise training = 1000+ condition damage for your pet.

OGDeadHead.8326:

StickerHappy.8052:

Taneru.2736:

Reeeeeeef Drake.
Taunt and confusion, oh my.

Too bad pets dont have condi damage… It will tick for 100… Ohmy…

Stack might on the pet then. Full stack + expertise training = 1000+ condition damage for your pet.

So…all that effort?….you will be likely dead at that point..

Should act as a (near) instant interrupt on Spider F2s and the Jaguar’s Stalk. Be ready to use those pets.

Sevans.4619:

Should act as a (near) instant interrupt on Spider F2s and the Jaguar’s Stalk. Be ready to use those pets.

Poisonous spider is already my mandatory pick for PVP now. The CD is acceptable too. (24 secs if traited)

If its anything like the heal on f2 trait itl happen at the begging of the cast. So will work instantly for anything from a canine to a carrion devourer. Should be useful actually in peeling a thief off your back if your using a ranged pet with a longbow.

See that first animation and smash f2. as long as its next to you should work just fine.

Why aren’t we asking about the interaction with other cc. Beastly warden sound good on paper but in application I think its not that great.

So I use the wolf, when I fear I want targets to run away from by pet i.e: away from my self or ally, Of a cliff or bridge in wvw and eotm.

How does this work with spiders and drake hound you immo so the first part of the taunt is wasted because they cant move. How does taunt work with my jaguar he stealths.

Pets that provide boons will most likely be near the party so mobs aren’t really going anywhere only benefit is that their auto attacking (cleave will still be an issue).

I can see uses of it but I also see greater limitations. Beastly warden should come in 3 flavors. Pets that already cc should get ability A, Pets the gaint boons should get B ability and pets that apply damage or damaging condition should get C ability.

This trait should expand the uses of our underused pet pool not limit it more.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

Why aren’t we asking about the interaction with other cc. Beastly warden sound good on paper but in application I think its not that great.

So I use the wolf, when I fear I want targets to run away from by pet i.e: away from my self or ally, Of a cliff or bridge in wvw and eotm.

How does this work with spiders and drake hound you immo so the first part of the taunt is wasted because they cant move. How does taunt work with my jaguar he stealths.

Pets that provide boons will most likely be near the party so mobs aren’t really going anywhere only benefit is that their auto attacking (cleave will still be an issue).

I can see uses of it by I also see greater limitations. Beastly warden should come in 3 flavors. Pets that already cc should get ability A, Pets the gaint boons should get B ability and pets that apply damage or damaging condition should get C ability.

This trait should expand the uses of our underused pet pool not limit it more.

As with all things in this game you bring traits to compliment your weapon/utility choices. You wouldn’t take a greatsword trait if you don’t use a greatsword, nor would you bring trap traits and not bring traps. Likewise you’d only take this trait if you intend to bring pets that can benefit from it.

Wolf already has a powerful control effect on it’s F2. Why would you add a second control effect on top of that? It’s contrary to why you brought a wolf in the first place.

Using an immob with a taunt may be very strong as the enemy won’t be able to use cleanses to break the immobilization as they are locked into attacking the pet. We don’t know about the jaguar yet but if stealth breaks the taunt then just don’t take the trait with that pet.

If you use your pet purely for boon support then again this trait doesn’t synergize with your pet choice. Just don’t take it.

In that same grandmaster slot you gave Quickening Zephyr which has phenomenal synergy with the wolf’s fear or with your own attacks so you can capitalize on the pet’s boons better.

As is this trait does provide our underused pets with more utility. It slaps a strong control effect on the F2 skills that don’t have control on them, which will let rangers finally step away from the usual double canine set ups that have become the best all around pet choices for PVP.

What happens when the taunt caster dies in this case the pet. Ele has traits and skills that perform differently base on attunement. Each of our pets fill certain type of role just as attunements do. Asking to discuss such a thing before anything is etched in stone is a good thing not a bad one.

If you think your moa can benefit from taunt fine, But fear and taunt on the same skill not so much. This is also the BM line ,so if I want to go this route I will rely heavily on the pet for dps. Which means the pet that are mostly use will still be used. People running into a drake breath attack pretty nice.

Jaguar was one of the pets chosen in beastmaster build how this trait function with this pet is vital. Maybe this trait doesn’t need to be change but another GM may need to be added.

I’m just saying.

What I think is nice that the trait itself allows beastmasters to use other pets than a Wolf.

Up until now, every single PvP ranger was forced to pick a wolf, because there was no discussion. Now you can run double birds for severe burst damage and have the control that Wolf Provided.

Or you can run Ice Wolf and have almost the same results, since the pet family is the same. But what is the most important…

Is that you can taunt enemies with 1 pet, then swap to wolf > and fear them away, which is going to be a nice and long lasting chain CC tanky build if you decide to play it with GS and/or probably Axe+Axe.

The way I see it:

- Spider (Any) applies venom to themselves.
- Taunt activates for at least 1s.
- In that 1s, my spider has a chance to use the envenomed spit, guaranteeing whatever other effects it may grant.

In the case of a Jungle Spider, that’s at least a 1s taunt followed by a 3s immobilize and because there’s probably going to be at least 1s between the taunt and when the venom hits, it chains into itself. That’s really powerful. Could potentially waste a stunbreak and/or force a condition clear.

EDIT: This also means we now have even more stomp interrupts in downed state.

I personally use drakes, since I feel they’re solid in terms of damage and survivability. The breath weapons for Marsh and river drakes are extremely solid, too, and can do a lot of damage assuming your opponent doesn’t dodge.

Taunt would make the breath weapons extremely potent, which i’m excited for.

Tragic Positive.9356:

…..you can taunt enemies with 1 pet, then swap to wolf > and fear them away, which is going to be a nice and long lasting chain CC…

IKR, so good. Especially if you use the Canines, Hyena F2 to summon, swap to wolf for immediate KD, Summon Hyena KDs, Wolf F2, Swap back to hyena for KD, hyena F2 for hyena summon + taunt, hyena summon KD, hyena KD….. LOL

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Tragic Positive.9356:

…..you can taunt enemies with 1 pet, then swap to wolf > and fear them away, which is going to be a nice and long lasting chain CC…

IKR, so good. Especially if you use the Canines, Hyena F2 to summon, swap to wolf for immediate KD, Summon Hyena KDs, Wolf F2, Swap back to hyena for KD, hyena F2 for hyena summon + taunt, hyena summon KD, hyena KD….. LOL

don’t they share the knockdown skill CDs?

I’d almost prefer to get the outlier F2’s in line through buffs + recharge increases, than change the trait to accommodate the outliers and eat the nerf that would entail.

Honestly, I can’t even remember the last time I used Arctodus, and I find the low cooldown on Hawk/Eagle more irritating than empowering. Pets could really stand to be Normalized.

Zatoichi.1049:

don’t they share the knockdown skill CDs?

Nope, the hyenas don’t share the CDs. You can actually get 2 summons for 4 seconds, so 3 hyenas and they can chain all 3 of the KDs.

I want to try BW when it releases with Hyena/Drakehound and Ogre runes for a fun build that can have 4 dog summons hehe.

Vox Hollow.2736:

Honestly, I can’t even remember the last time I used Arctodus, and I find the low cooldown on Hawk/Eagle more irritating than empowering. Pets could really stand to be Normalized.

I don’t want to see normalised, then we would end up with – Press F2 for your pet to do X damage. Boring!

Just because you don’t like using your pet F2 every 6 seconds and find it irritating, doesn’t mean everyone does. I have F2 bound to the mouse so you can activate it easily and constantly when in combat. A fully buffed Hawk does amazing damage with the F2 and you can have it on a 4.8s recharge.

I’m referring to normalizing the impact, not the content.

Like;
Imagine if Arcotodus’s Rending Maul applied 2 stacks of bleed every 30 seconds. You’re a Dev overlooking this balancing and you think that sounds weak. At this point you’re faced with two choices: either reduce the recharge or make it stronger.
They ended up reducing the recharge, I’m saying make it stronger.

I’m saying this because you avoid headaches like this.

Where the effect is more or less balanced at 15 seconds, but the skills that can activate that effect range from 6 to 60. So they put in a cooldown, and some of those choices dip into that awkwardly intermittent territory or carry an opportunity cost of not applying the effect 2 to 3 times when it could’ve (which discourages pets that strictly don’t need to be).

Fair enough, I thought you meant make all F2 skills have a 15s CD across the board. But I agree, all skills should do roughly the same DPS, else you end up with some pets being useless and others near mandatory. That still happens, Wolf for example, it’s just so good that it is always on my swap, and DH is close second, because if you have one canine, you may as well have the other too for the KD on swap but that is because of utility and not DPS.

Some of the skills could very much do with a balancing look, like you said, Rending Maul is vastly inferior to, say, Lacerating Slash, but the pet stats and type also play a role in that too. You couldn’t have bears doing Lacerating Slash damage or applying 30 bleed ticks every 6s.

How about we ditch the cooldown and do it like intimidation training? F2 gets casted, affected mobs get taunted. Given how pets with short cooldown F2 skills are an easy kill or the skill itself is not too useful i’d say it would balance out just fine. Also hope it’ll follow pet skill’s nature and mob skills such as the mentioned drakehound howl will taunt all enemies affected, or ally buffing skills won’t taunt at all (like red moa screech or sylvan hound regeneration).