Guild Wars 2

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Ider.1276:

You see, every time you swap a pet it drops all the boons. Soo I don’t think that the dynamic gameplay of swaping in and out of beastmode (by the way, the name is stupid).

Purely a matter of preference, and maybe because I’m not a native speaker. I think beastmode sounds awesome! And a little bit funny because of some inside very bad jokes me and some friends make

Aleksander Suburb.4287:

Shiren.9532:

…

The CDI was full of people who didn’t play ranger, at least not as a main. The ranger is fundamentally a pet class and anyone who didn’t want a pet simply should have picked something else. There are certainly situations where you may not want to have a pet out (like a longbow ranger fighting a zerg) but the idea that the ranger community doesn’t want the pet is simply false – anyone who didn’t want a pet obviously wouldn’t pick the only class who’s fundamental mechanic is a pet. …

We pick a ranger because we want to role play a ranger and not a beastmaster.

That’s not what the ranger is or ever was. It was always, from the first reveal, a pet class. They’ve never wavered on the pet being the class mechanic of the ranger.

Aleksander Suburb.4287:

Shiren.9532:

You might have wanted to be a lone wolf skirmisher of the wilds, but that was never the ranger. The ranger is defined at its very core by the pet.

It was the ranger in guild wars 1 and there is no other class for this type of gameplay.

The soulbeast is fundamentally a non-pet class and anyone who want a pet simply should have picked something else

I don’t know where you’re getting that from. The soulbeast clearly swaps back and forth between having the pet out and merging with it. The pet is still a vital part of the design of the soulbeast. If you choose to always merge with your pet, that appears to be an option, but it looks like that would be similar to choosing to to never leave fire attunement – there will be situations where you would be objectively inferior to someone who utilises the full tool kit and not just one part of it.

If you want to permanently give up access to all of your pet’s power and their F2 skills (which on most pets is the best skill) that’s your choice. I doubt it will be the best one.

Shiren.9532:

…I don’t know where you’re getting that from. The soulbeast clearly swaps back and forth between having the pet out and merging with it. The pet is still a vital part of the design of the soulbeast. If you choose to always merge with your pet, that appears to be an option, but it looks like that would be similar to choosing to to never leave fire attunement – there will be situations where you would be objectively inferior to someone who utilises the full tool kit and not just one part of it.

If you want to permanently give up access to all of your pet’s power and their F2 skills (which on most pets is the best skill) that’s your choice. I doubt it will be the best one.

Yeah. Even if you stow the pet permanently and don’t use the F2, pet choice is still important for the stat bonus and additional skills

I can see myself using the Pet F2 like Tigers’ Furious Pounce to enter combat and get the buff, then merging as soon as it lands, hopefully the merging counts as a pet or weapon swap for the on-swap traits and sigils, sigil of agility, clarion/vigorous bond and zephyr’s speed. Probably keeping a CC pet on swap so you can drop out of beastmode and swap pets to CC on demand.

draxynnic.3719:

Eh, renegede has a lot of clearly supernatural attacks for a Legolas. Soulbeast or even dragonhunter is probably closer.

Both soulbeast and dragonhunter have lots and lots of magic attacks, so with this kind of criterion the best petless ranger-Legolas is a thief.

draxynnic.3719:

More broadly, I don’t think it’s fair to say that soulbeast is doing away with the pet mechanic. How long you remain in soulbeast form, and how you use it, is a choice. The proof will be in the pudding, of course, but I could also see it being used to enhance the use of a pet and make it more viable: for instance, it provides another means apart from pet-swapping to prevent an endangered pet from being disabled, a(nother) means of instantly calling the pet back to you if you need it, and so on.

Well, yes, you can stay in beast mode as long as you want and switch as much as you like. But here we go to the tempest analogy, where every second outside fire attunement is a dps loss. Of course, it will not matter in openworld (even now there are plenty of staff druids on any world boss doing pew-pew with AA), but in raids and fractals it will matter. So, as long as ranger and his pet are not sharing all the boons 100% of the time we will be forced to play all the time either in beastmode or with an active pet (depends on which will be the optimal way). And discouraged to switch the mode on/off. Just as switching pets now: you are switching only if pet is going to die.

Ider.1276:

draxynnic.3719:

Eh, renegede has a lot of clearly supernatural attacks for a Legolas. Soulbeast or even dragonhunter is probably closer.

Both soulbeast and dragonhunter have lots and lots of magic attacks, so with this kind of criterion the best petless ranger-Legolas is a thief.

I considered thief, and generally speaking you’d be right, but thinking in terms of being an archer specifically – the way thieves use bows is very different to a Legolas. Plus, there’s clearly magic involved there.

Dragonhunters do have clear use of magic, but it’s less overt than renegede seems to be. Come to think on it, I also didn’t consider warrior, which will fit in there somewhere.

As for soulbeast… how ‘supernatural’ the skills are will depend largely on the choice of pet, I think. If you’re melding with a jacaranda, then sure, you’re calling lightning. If you’re melding with a bear, then the abilities you get are probably more mundane than some of the things we already see in ranger melee attacks.

Ider.1276:

draxynnic.3719:

More broadly, I don’t think it’s fair to say that soulbeast is doing away with the pet mechanic. How long you remain in soulbeast form, and how you use it, is a choice. The proof will be in the pudding, of course, but I could also see it being used to enhance the use of a pet and make it more viable: for instance, it provides another means apart from pet-swapping to prevent an endangered pet from being disabled, a(nother) means of instantly calling the pet back to you if you need it, and so on.

Well, yes, you can stay in beast mode as long as you want and switch as much as you like. But here we go to the tempest analogy, where every second outside fire attunement is a dps loss. Of course, it will not matter in openworld (even now there are plenty of staff druids on any world boss doing pew-pew with AA), but in raids and fractals it will matter. So, as long as ranger and his pet are not sharing all the boons 100% of the time we will be forced to play all the time either in beastmode or with an active pet (depends on which will be the optimal way). And discouraged to switch the mode on/off. Just as switching pets now: you are switching only if pet is going to die.

Which is a question of balancing.

Personally, the aiming point I would go for is that if you want top DPS you want the pet out more often than not, but melding can allow you to make use of a specific pet skill now (for CC or to blast a field, for instance) and compensates you for situations where pets just aren’t viable.

draxynnic.3719:

As for soulbeast… how ‘supernatural’ the skills are will depend largely on the choice of pet, I think. If you’re melding with a jacaranda, then sure, you’re calling lightning. If you’re melding with a bear, then the abilities you get are probably more mundane than some of the things we already see in ranger melee attacks.

As someone mentioned above, rangers always had a lot of magical stuff: summoning spirits, enchanting roots to entangle enemies, throwing axes imbued with frost magic, shooting magic arrows that make them invisible. Soulbeast goes even further: the process of melding with a pet is highly magical thing. So at the moment soulbeast is as close to Legolas as holosmith to Aragorn (they both have a sword). I still think the thief is the closest: just a normal guy with great mobility, lightning reflexes and exelent skills of using a short bow and stabby things. If deadeye was using longbow instead of rifle the picture would be 100% accurate.

Might have to come back and play this expansion a bit to see how it works.

Ider.1276:

draxynnic.3719:

As for soulbeast… how ‘supernatural’ the skills are will depend largely on the choice of pet, I think. If you’re melding with a jacaranda, then sure, you’re calling lightning. If you’re melding with a bear, then the abilities you get are probably more mundane than some of the things we already see in ranger melee attacks.

As someone mentioned above, rangers always had a lot of magical stuff: summoning spirits, enchanting roots to entangle enemies, throwing axes imbued with frost magic, shooting magic arrows that make them invisible. Soulbeast goes even further: the process of melding with a pet is highly magical thing. So at the moment soulbeast is as close to Legolas as holosmith to Aragorn (they both have a sword). I still think the thief is the closest: just a normal guy with great mobility, lightning reflexes and exelent skills of using a short bow and stabby things. If deadeye was using longbow instead of rifle the picture would be 100% accurate.

Strictly speaking, Tolkein’s elves have magic too. It’s more subtle, but it’s there.

However, that’s actually a little beside the point – you were the one who brought Legolas up in the first place, I was just running with it. The people who wanted a petless ranger are essentially just looking for the nature-y archer or GW1 ranger archetype, not Legolas specifically. The magic present in Soulbeast, particularly with pets with more mundane skills, fits that archetype. The renegede, with a bunch of attacks involving things coming out of portals, really doesn’t.

Even with Soulbeast looking like it’ll require constant dancing between the pet and no pet to be optimal, I think a lot of people who liked the Lone Ranger thematic GW1 allowed will really like Soulbeast since you can probably spend a majority of your time without your pet, and just use the mindset of the pet is a tool you’re utilizing every now and then.

Durzlla.6295:

Even with Soulbeast looking like it’ll require constant dancing between the pet and no pet to be optimal, I think a lot of people who liked the Lone Ranger thematic GW1 allowed will really like Soulbeast since you can probably spend a majority of your time without your pet, and just use the mindset of the pet is a tool you’re utilizing every now and then.

Constantly vibrating between modes will probably depend heavily on whether pets have their own cooldown for their skills and our BM skills.

Can we fuse with a hound, use both leaps, pop out of BM and have the hound use it’s leaps?

If not, we’ll probably be in BM more often than not just because of how much more practical the pet skills will be (wing buffet in the teaser video or the brutal charge in the stream for example).

It probably also depends on how many “trigger when entering/leaving BM” traits we get. No resource and infinite BM duration makes me think we won’t be getting anything nearly as powerful as we got with the Druid.

Just realised the dagger has a skill that buffs pets.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Double_Arc

Substance E.4852:

Durzlla.6295:

Even with Soulbeast looking like it’ll require constant dancing between the pet and no pet to be optimal, I think a lot of people who liked the Lone Ranger thematic GW1 allowed will really like Soulbeast since you can probably spend a majority of your time without your pet, and just use the mindset of the pet is a tool you’re utilizing every now and then.

Constantly vibrating between modes will probably depend heavily on whether pets have their own cooldown for their skills and our BM skills.

Can we fuse with a hound, use both leaps, pop out of BM and have the hound use it’s leaps?

If not, we’ll probably be in BM more often than not just because of how much more practical the pet skills will be (wing buffet in the teaser video or the brutal charge in the stream for example).

It probably also depends on how many “trigger when entering/leaving BM” traits we get. No resource and infinite BM duration makes me think we won’t be getting anything nearly as powerful as we got with the Druid.

True, if they share CDs you’d likely not dance between them as much unless having the two bodies is more beneficial.

We’re still missing info on a 4th stance, aren’t we? Realization I had.

jcbroe.4329:

We’re still missing info on a 4th stance, aren’t we? Realization I had.

Which instance? I think we got the info of all 5.

anduriell.6280:

jcbroe.4329:

We’re still missing info on a 4th stance, aren’t we? Realization I had.

Which instance? I think we got the info of all 5.

He’s referring to that all HOT elite specializations got 6 utility skill kits(like our glyphs). Not sure it will be the same this time(we can hope).

jcbroe.4329:

We’re still missing info on a 4th stance, aren’t we? Realization I had.

And you made me realise that. It’s Moa Stance, no info.

Maybe we will get a Stun Breaker somewhere. I wouldn’t be surprised it’s support/defensive oriented.

Krispera.5087:

jcbroe.4329:

We’re still missing info on a 4th stance, aren’t we? Realization I had.

And you made me realise that. It’s Moa Stance, no info.

Maybe we will get a Stun Breaker somewhere. I wouldn’t be surprised it’s support/defensive oriented.

Dolyak Stance is the stunbreak afaik, but yeah, if it’s Moa Stance, it’s almost definitely supportive.

LughLongArm.5460:

anduriell.6280:

jcbroe.4329:

We’re still missing info on a 4th stance, aren’t we? Realization I had.

Which instance? I think we got the info of all 5.

He’s referring to that all HOT elite specializations got 6 utility skill kits(like our glyphs). Not sure it will be the same this time(we can hope).

LughLongArm.5460:

anduriell.6280:

jcbroe.4329:

We’re still missing info on a 4th stance, aren’t we? Realization I had.

Which instance? I think we got the info of all 5.

He’s referring to that all HOT elite specializations got 6 utility skill kits(like our glyphs). Not sure it will be the same this time(we can hope).

Yeah that’s what I meant. Every class that received competent coverage was shown to have a heal, an elite, and 4 utilities.