Guild Wars 2

Irenio is love. Irenio is life.

I see some people making suggestions for shouts that I think should be a baseline functionality of the ranger. I made a different thread to discuss my ideas for a pet training panel that i think is relevant to this discussion.

Shouts should not try to fix the class mechanic, they should be an enhancement of our class mechanic.

So far I have been seeing two primary camps. Or trains of thought.

One seems to be the addition of boons or the manipulation of boons to the shouts.

The other seems to be more mechanical changes to the shouts. Changing there functionality to maek them more impactful.

On those trains of thought it feels like the first would have a more “generic” set of usefullness. It would make them closer to other classes shouts. With a slight twist due to there reliance on the pet

The other sticks to the concept of enhancing the pet to enable it to complete a very specific task. Tunnel visioning the pet on a certain goal for a period of time. Less boon support. But a more focused effort outside of boons.

Does that seem accurate to everyone else?

niconori.7235:

Lazze.9870:

niconori.7235:

And do we really need a second source of stability?

You wanna bound our only source of stability to an elite with an activation time? It’s bad enough not having instant stability.

Why not just kill off the class at that point.

What are you trying t say when sotw also has a cast time? having 2 stab source = same effect as instant cast stab? awesome logic.

No, I’m telling you only having one source of stability is a kittening dumb idea, and that it is bad enough that none of them are instacast.

Speaking of logic.

JKLeetro.6935:

My thought on this:

Guard – 15 Second CD w/o trait
Guard is no longer ground targetted AOE instead pet will remain near the ranger and only attack the target that is within 600 radius of ranger.
Pet will not chase the enemy unless ranger directly orders to which will end Guard discarding remaining time.
Pet guards an area pursing cripple for 1 second per second.
Pet and ranger gains protection for 1 second per second.
Pet casts (instant cast) taunt for 2 seconds on any enemies attacking ranger. (10 seconds ICD)
No stealth on the pet, but grants ranger stealth for 3 seconds.
Enemy’s point-capture contribution is slowed.

Guard should act as a mean for the ranger to protect him/herself during the cast. So pet should make any enemies trying to bypass the pet to go straight to the ranger during the effective duration. To compensate the effect should only last for 10 second.

Agree with this entirely, +1.

Some additional thoughts:

Protect Me!:

• Also becomes a PBAoE with 600 range around the ranger.

• Pet gains pulsing Aegis and Protection every two seconds for a six second duration (same duration that it currently has).

• During this time, pet takes all damage directed at ranger and any allies standing in range of the shout.

• Cooldown: 30 seconds.

• Duration: 6 seconds.

This essentially makes “Protect Me!” a party-wide block, which will further compliment the Ranger’s utility. Pretty straightforward, and the pulsing Aegis won’t help if it’s under fire by a ton of AoE or intense burst.

Search and Rescue!:

• Becomes ground-targeted. Range is 1200, target area itself is 400 in diameter.

• Pet gains 5 seconds of swiftness, pulsing stability every three seconds as it runs towards the targeted area.

• Pet will revive all downed allies in targeted area, starting with ally closest to the center of the circle.

• Cooldown: 75 seconds.

• Duration: 10 seconds if you’re including the pet’s travel time to the target area, 5 seconds if you’re not. Having the downed allies be closer to the pet’s starting location should naturally give your pet more time to resurrect them.

Knowing where your pet is actually going and knowing it has a fair chance of getting there in the first place will do wonders for “Search and Rescue!”’s viability, in my opinion.

Sic ’Em!:

• Movement speed bonus becomes super speed.

• Pet gains three stacks of stability upon activation of the shout.

• Ranger gets five stacks of might and three seconds of swiftness. Stacks with Resounding Timbre.

• Range of the shout is unchanged from 2000.

• Duration: unchanged.

• Cooldown: 30 seconds.

Not changing much here, the stealth reveal is the critical component of the shout and I’d rather not see it changed. More focused on giving the pet more opportunity to get there and making it easier for the ranger to follow up behind.

As this is focused more on the pre-SotP/WHAO shouts, I won’t comment on “Strength of the Pack!”. I think it’s fine anyway, really. And WHAO has it’s own thread.

My personal opinion is that all of the shouts should be viable untraited. Resounding Timbre should stack with them and improve upon them, but it should not be necessary to take the trait to make the shouts worthwhile.

Search & Rescue

• reduce cooldown to 30 seconds.
• require a valid target, like Sick ’Em.
• pet shadowsteps to target, 1200 range.
• give it stability/protection/quickness or something nice.

If it’s going to take up a utility slot it can’t have a 90s cooldown. It also shouldn’t go on cooldown without a valid target. It should also move faster to the target and not be interrupted or killed easily. It’s already only reviving at 33% speed. It has far too many weaknesses in its current state.

Protect Me

• revives pet
• gives pet 20.000 extra health bonus for the duration (2.000 vitality)

This skill doesn’t work with a dead pet, so it would be great if it could revive the pet. Manual reviving of the pet was removed from the game years ago, but hasn’t been replaced with another means.
This skill also doesn’t work with pets who are at low health or weak (like birds), so giving pets a health boost for the duration (a bit like death shroud) would solve this and allow all pets to use this shout. Bears would still be able to take the most damage of course.

Sic ’Em

• passive buff lasts the entire duration and can not be removed.

Giving another command to the pet removes the buff, but it is 100% benefitial so it makes no sense to remove it. It makes sense that you can stop Protect Me and Guard with other commands/shouts however.

Guard

• pet no longer sent to a location.
• 3s retaliation/protection to the Ranger

The fact that it sends the pet to a location only ruins its use in my opinion. I’ve never felt I needed that feature on my utility bar.
Maybe add something to the Ranger with it as well, so it’s more useful and fits the theme of being guarded.

Lazze.9870:

niconori.7235:

Lazze.9870:

niconori.7235:

And do we really need a second source of stability?

You wanna bound our only source of stability to an elite with an activation time? It’s bad enough not having instant stability.

Why not just kill off the class at that point.

What are you trying t say when sotw also has a cast time? having 2 stab source = same effect as instant cast stab? awesome logic.

No, I’m telling you only having one source of stability is a kittening dumb idea, and that it is bad enough that none of them are instacast.

Speaking of logic.

Then stop kittening whining and suggest instant cast stab somewhere instead of going back and forth and being unconstructive?

niconori.7235:

Lazze.9870:

niconori.7235:

Lazze.9870:

niconori.7235:

And do we really need a second source of stability?

You wanna bound our only source of stability to an elite with an activation time? It’s bad enough not having instant stability.

Why not just kill off the class at that point.

What are you trying t say when sotw also has a cast time? having 2 stab source = same effect as instant cast stab? awesome logic.

No, I’m telling you only having one source of stability is a kittening dumb idea, and that it is bad enough that none of them are instacast.

Speaking of logic.

Then stop kittening whining and suggest instant cast stab somewhere instead of going back and forth and being unconstructive?

it’s a valid issue to bring up. we don’t have any insta-cast stability, meaning we cant use it reactively. both SoW and SotP have a cast time so unless we can these before the engagement, we can get easily locked down. this limits us in many ways.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Lazze.9870:

borya.2964:

Resounding Timbre : Shouts apply regeneration and swiftness to allies. Reduces recharge on shouts. Your pet gain Aura Of Nature when activating a shout 3s.

I like it, but it suffers from having the effect wear off before getting the chance to take advantage of it.

Why not go all out for once, and make the pet apply the auro to nearby allies aswell.

Even better.

Well, i was inspired by Light Aura from guardians and the duration is pretty much the same, resistance is an obvious choice and weakness have some synergy with other traits. The fisrt goal was to improve the pet survivability, but indeed it would be really better. Keeping in mind this possibility, i had some ideas.

Protect me same CD: It would punish the opponents who keep attacking the ranger buy buffing you and your party. You would have a visible icon and it could have some synergy with traited signets.

Guard same CD: AoE denial

The first thing that strikes me about ranger shouts is how bad their design are. Across all other professions, and now elite specialisations, shouts are AoE that either give some boons to allies, or impair enemies, strangely enough ranger shouts are none of that.
Their shouts are supposed to have an interaction with the pets, which is an original approach to shouts, and is in accordance with the theme of the ranger, meaning a symbiotic relation between the pet and the ranger. However in reality few shouts have a synergy between pets and ranger, making them terrible from the point of view of the class, and because it’s not enough, they have a poor use inside a party, only Search and Rescue brings some good support, but it feels just bad, and of course there is the Resounding Timbre trait that also brings a good group support, and frankly this is the only thing that legitimate the use of shouts on ranger. Another issue is that some shouts have a weird use, like Sic’Em that forces you to have a target, or Guard that is a ground targeted skill, making the ranger shouts totally different compared to the other classes shouts.

Conclusion:
Ranger shouts have no, or very few, interactions with other players, allies or enemies, but beyond that, they are not even good for what their purpose is, offering a good synergy between the pet and the ranger.

Proposition:

We Heal as One:
I like the new changes because it answers to one problem that I raise above, which is the synergy issue. Through those changes We Heal as One offers now a good interaction, through boon share, between the ranger and the pet. However the community found some abuses, and it got quickly nerfed, which was necessary, but the nerf was too heavy-handed.
The amount of boon share should have a limit, but the limit should be softer.
Few examples:
Might should have a limit around 5 stacks, making ranger more independent toward might self-sustain, Quickness should have a limit around 3 seconds, in order to make some burst build more rewarding to play … I’ll not examine each boon, but you get the idea.

Guard:
One thing that strikes me with this one, is that it should not be a shout, but an order on the pet command panel, because I literally see no use for this shout in every situation possible, except maybe if you spam it with Resounding Timbre. Moreover this shout does not affect the ranger, in other words there is no synergy/symbiosis, this shout is only here to increase the pet survivability through protection and stealth, and I’m sorry but nobody want to waste an utility slot to increase the survivability of a pet.
I recommend to rework the skill, instead of Guard I propose Ambush.
Ambush gives to you and your pet 3 seconds of Stealth, and to both of you an Opening Strike, plus it cripples nearby foes. The cooldown should be around 30/35 seconds.
The goal here is to make this shout more offensive, surprise the enemies, and bursting one of them with an Opening Strike, alongside it gives some stealth to the ranger, which is actually really hard to have compared to the other medium profession.

Protect Me:
Actually this is the worst skill to avoid a burst/survive, across all profession, because it basically kills your pet to have a little sustain, and it’s selfish, and from a ranger point of view does not compete well against Signet of Stone.
I recommend to change Protect Me, by Protect Us, and the skill will now have a similar use to Phantasmal Defender or the Bulwark Gyro.
Protect Us gives the effect Warden Protection to nearby allies, transferring 50% of the incoming damage to your pet, in addition your pet gain a health increase, something around 3000/4000.
Through that change the shout has now a utility in group, and offers something new to rangers.

Search and Rescue:
The skill is good, but need some tweak. I recommend to make it an AoE resurrection, and having two sources, meaning that when you use the shout it will revive nearby downed allies around you and your pet.
Search and Rescue – When you use Search and Rescue you and your pet will pulse for 8 seconds the effect Kindly Warden to nearby downed allies, which revives them. The radius is 180 around both sources, you and your pet, but if a source dies the effect stop to pulse, if you swap pet, your next pet will not pulse the effect.
Now you have a skill similar to Toss elixir R, but slightly more powerful if well used.

Sic ’Em:
An overall good skill, I mainly use it to buff the dps on my pet, but it lacks of synergy with the ranger, and the revealed application is clunky since you need to target someone to apply it, meaning that you need to reveal someone before he goes into stealth mode.
I recommend to change the 40% damage/movement speed increase for the application of diverse boon on the pet, in order to create some synergy between Sic ‘Em and We Heal as One, and I recommend to have an AoE reveal in order to make it more rewarding to use
Sic ‘Em applies 10 stacks of might for 10 seconds, 4 seconds of superspeed, 4 seconds of fury, and 4 seconds of quickness on your pet, and applies revealed for 3 seconds on foes nearby both the ranger and the pet.
Again we have a double source AoE, the pet and the ranger, which creates some interesting opportunities where you can increase the surface covered by your shout if you place your pet wisely, and the radius should be around 180 for both sources. Moreover you can use We Heal as One to gain some of the boons applied by Sic ‘Em.

Strength of the Pack:
Nothing to say, except that the casting time is maybe too long, I would reduce it to 0.5 second, or at least to 0.75.

TL ; DR - Shouts on Ranger have a unique application, they don’t have a lot interaction with other players, allies or enemies, and are all about interaction with your Pet. However the current state of shouts makes this synergy/symbiosis between a Ranger and his/her Pet close to impossible.
I recommended few changes, reworks, in order to make the shouts more interesting for group support, for fight engagement, and to have a better synergy.

I see alot of people pushing to have protect me or guard become an aoe damage transfer to the pet. May I ask why? It just seems counter intuitive to have a skill that potentially disables the class mechanic that would only even be worth using with 2 or 3 pet families.

If we actually look at the amount of health pets have. And the amount of damage theyd be expected to absorb. Can we really say theyl have a significant impact in the majority of content. Especially in PvP and WvW. and quite likely in raids. It feels like the pets would die far too quickly to actually be useful. Leaving us without our class mechanic. Effectively blocking us from using the other shouts as well as our pets themselves.

You could argue (just cancel it before it dies) but that isn’t always going to be the case. Becuase we can’t predict crit damage. Niether can we predict if our fellow payers are going to use active mitigation to lower further the dmg the pet would take. It could die extremely quickly in many situations.

And even if we could cancel it intime. We would almost have to burn our heal skill to heal hte pet off or wed be forced to immediately pet swap. I don’t think a utility skill should force the person using it to commit to more actions. They should force the opponent to commit more actions to counter it.

Alchimist.4738:

TL ; DR - Shouts on Ranger have a unique application, they don’t have a lot interaction with other players, allies or enemies, and are all about interaction with your Pet. However the current state of shouts makes this synergy/symbiosis between a Ranger and his/her Pet close to impossible.
I recommended few changes, reworks, in order to make the shouts more interesting for group support, for fight engagement, and to have a better synergy.

Indeed, I think there needs to be this interaction component between your pet and the Ranger with these shouts. (Think rune of the Trooper/Soldier in PvP)

For “guard” I have read some very interesting suggestions where you are able to teleport back to your pet after you have placed them. This gives the skill this interaction, it would reinvent kiting for the Ranger in PvP and could be used really interesting in WvW situations (it would not break anything with the current mesmer portal meta..)

I am in the camp of having utility shouts (US from here on) grant greater interaction with pets. Currently, US suffer from two core issues : (1) very niche uses and (2) primarily affect the pet. I like the idea of Rangers calling out commands for their pet which current US do but I would like theirs uses to have greater internal synergy. In addition, I believe the US should give the Ranger greater control of their pet.

Here are my suggestions in italics without any numbers since I assume numbers can be balanced:

Guard Current
Your Pet leaps to the target area gaining Retaliation and Resistance. Enemies in the target area take Damage and are Weakened and Crippled.
Reasoning: Guard is considered one of the most useless skills in the game. This change gives Rangers something they have never had: A way to quickly move their pet around the battlefield. This can be extremely useful especially after a pet swap. I imagine the speed the Pet will leap at should be the same as Warrior Gs5 rush. In addition, the leap damage and applies impairing conditions to enemies to make the skill useful in a wide range of situations.

Protect Me Current
Your Pet gains Protection and returns to its master at super speed absorbing damage the master takes. Protection is twice as effective on the pet while it protects its master. This skill breaks stun on both the pet and the master.
Protect Me is not far from being useful as long as it can be used without killing the pet. Applying a boosted Protection should allow the pet to survive the redirected damage. Returning to the master is very important to guarantee the skill activates due to the known bug as well as allows the pet to get back into action faster compared to currently the pet being inactive while Protect Me is active. It would be cool if Pet’s Retaliation triggered off the transferred damage to the original source, so this skill could be combined with my suggestion for Guard.

Search and Rescue Current
I like Shadelang’s suggestion alot “On the topic of Search and Rescue. What if it was reworked to be a ground targted ability that hte pet would run into an area and pulse out aoe healing. That healing would have a similar affect to a weaker version of transfusion on the downed. But it would also affect those still standing.”
I would add in that it gives the Pet and allies in the area Regeneration, put that is for a change in Resounding Timber that is further down.

Sic’Em Current
Grants the Pet multiple stacks of Might and Swiftness and causes the pet to leap at its target Damaging, Revealing, and Knocking the target down. This skill counts as a Leap Finisher for the pet.
Sic’em currently has very occasional uses to counter Stealthers in SPvp. I like that niche use, but it needs a greater variety of uses. First, my suggestion will function like a leap so that pet can quickly start reposition itself to the target. I imagine the pet will move at a similar speed to Warrior Sword 2. Second, the Knockdown and Damage makes the skill be useful against any target and the Reveal continues its former niche use. Finally, the leap finisher adds extra interaction between the pet and combo fields.

Resounding Timber Current
Shouts apply boons also to the Ranger. Reduce the Duration of Shouts by 20%.
The idea is that each retooled US granted different specific boons to the pet. When Resounding Timber is slotted, those boons will be applied to both the Ranger and the Pet. This gives the Ranger a much wider selection and better control over which boons it wants.

I hope you all enjoyed my suggestions. I put a premium on having the shouts execute specific movement commands at a rapid pace: Guard will act to reposition the pet to a target location, Protect Me repositions the pet to its master, Search and rescue repositions the pet to a location, and Sic’em repositions the pet to a target enemy. I tried to keep my suggestions in line with a martial class. Teleports and Boon Rips feel out of place on either the ranger or any current pet. Critiques and Praise are welcome.

For my part, I was dreaming that “Guard!” becomes “On Me!” and brings your pet close to your side, stealthing and possibly granting protection to both of you for the duration, like a police or military K9 unit trains to stay close for the protection of the handler and the dog, sometimes even stalking between the legs of the handler as they both move around an area.

They said in giving Engineers a stealth gyro and anti-stealth toolbelt skill they wanted to open up stealth gameplay and give it more counters. Ranger already has some stealth, and hunters rely a lot on stealth, so I think it’d be great to give Rangers more stealth and counter-stealth.

What about a trait that revealed enemies you burned, making torch and fire trap and sun spirit anti-stealth abilities for the Ranger, for example?

Guard doesn’t make any sense. We shout “Guard”, and the pet goes to X location, stealthing and giving itself protection o.O the silly design of these shouts always astonished me.

The issue with Sic Em is that it’s mostly used against thieves and mesmers wich have both access to telelport. It makes the tracking part useless, thats why the skill should teleport the pet, with the same effects and superspeed i guess instead of 40% movement speed. That being said, i am hardly opposed to some ranger teleport or stealth, we are rangers, not thieves.

as mentioned lately, I like the idea of making Resounding Timbre copy boons as WHaO currently does. If every Shout put out decent boons (either to pet or player), it would be great synergy:

WHaO: gives Regen and Swiftness to player and pet. base.
Guard: Pet gets Protection, Stealth, and Retaliation. Pet guards the area, and it first attack either Taunts or cripples
Protect me: Pet gains protection and Resistance for 6 seconds, pet absorbs all damage. Breask stun
Search and Rescue: Pet gets Stability and revives a downed ally10% faster with Regen and Vigor. If you begin to revive a player while this skill is disabled you gain Aegis.
Sic em’: Pet gets Quickness, Superspeed and Fury and its attacks cause cripple and reveal.

Zatoichi.1049:

as mentioned lately, I like the idea of making Resounding Timbre copy boons as WHaO currently does. If every Shout put out decent boons (either to pet or player), it would be great synergy:

WHaO: gives Regen and Swiftness to player and pet. base.
Guard: Pet gets Protection, Stealth, and Retaliation. Pet guards the area, and it first attack either Taunts or cripples
Protect me: Pet gains protection and Resistance for 6 seconds, pet absorbs all damage. Breask stun
Search and Rescue: Pet gets Stability and revives a downed ally10% faster with Regen and Vigor. If you begin to revive a player while this skill is disabled you gain Aegis.
Sic em’: Pet gets Quickness, Superspeed and Fury and its attacks cause cripple and reveal.

It’s realistic and good, but it brings nothing to the party. I really think that shouts, with simple changes, could have a good synergy between the pet, the ranger AND the party. Like “thanks dude, we love your pet”.

borya.2964:

Zatoichi.1049:

as mentioned lately, I like the idea of making Resounding Timbre copy boons as WHaO currently does. If every Shout put out decent boons (either to pet or player), it would be great synergy:

WHaO: gives Regen and Swiftness to player and pet. base.
Guard: Pet gets Protection, Stealth, and Retaliation. Pet guards the area, and it first attack either Taunts or cripples
Protect me: Pet gains protection and Resistance for 6 seconds, pet absorbs all damage. Breask stun
Search and Rescue: Pet gets Stability and revives a downed ally10% faster with Regen and Vigor. If you begin to revive a player while this skill is disabled you gain Aegis.
Sic em’: Pet gets Quickness, Superspeed and Fury and its attacks cause cripple and reveal.

It’s realistic and good, but it brings nothing to the party. I really think that shouts, with simple changes, could have a good synergy between the pet, the ranger AND the party. Like “thanks dude, we love your pet”.

ok so how bout Resounding timbre copies boons to party members too then? With a smallish radius like 360

I feel spirits should really be fleshed out to be our party support option. Frost/Sun/Earth/and even air spirits are actually quite decent at increasing party dps and survivability now. They just need to be shifted so that there capable of functioning in large scale engagements without being instantly smashed by accidental aoe or left behind by gw2s naturally fast paced combat.

I think its fine if shouts are a bit selfish on the ranger. I feel there meant to be about the bond between the ranger and the pet. Not the pet and random busybody # 3159.

Of course my perspective is colored from years of playing pet classes. Generally pet classes in other games assist allies by having a prescence in places players can’t go. Which is a role shouts can fulfill. They just aren’t given the tools they need yet.

Shadelang.3012:

I feel spirits should really be fleshed out to be our party support option. Frost/Sun/Earth/and even air spirits are actually quite decent at increasing party dps and survivability now. They just need to be shifted so that there capable of functioning in large scale engagements without being instantly smashed by accidental aoe or left behind by gw2s naturally fast paced combat.
But that should be in another topic.

I think its fine if shouts are a bit selfish on the ranger. I feel there meant to be about the bond between the ranger and the pet. Not the pet and random busybody # 3159.

Of course my perspective is colored from years of playing pet classes. Generally pet classes in other games assist allies by having a prescence in places players can’t go. Which is a role shouts can fulfill. They just aren’t given the tools they need yet.

Someone suggested that spirits could be turned to wisps and it looked like a good idea. Something like a trait turning spirits into wisp, greatly reducing the effective range (people would need to be close to the ranger to get the Xs buff) in exchange for mobility/invincibility.

Shadelang.3012:

I feel spirits should really be fleshed out to be our party support option. Frost/Sun/Earth/and even air spirits are actually quite decent at increasing party dps and survivability now. They just need to be shifted so that there capable of functioning in large scale engagements without being instantly smashed by accidental aoe or left behind by gw2s naturally fast paced combat.

I think its fine if shouts are a bit selfish on the ranger. I feel there meant to be about the bond between the ranger and the pet. Not the pet and random busybody # 3159.

Of course my perspective is colored from years of playing pet classes. Generally pet classes in other games assist allies by having a prescence in places players can’t go. Which is a role shouts can fulfill. They just aren’t given the tools they need yet.

I agree with all this. Spirits are obviously meant to be our support option and are starting to become quite strong. We need a way to keep them alive, which for me would be as simple as increasing their effective range to 2,000 instead of 1,000 so we can roam away from them. WvWvW might be a problem but a short 5 second grace period where the spirits are indestructible might be sufficient. The bonus lasts a good 10-15 seconds after the spirit dies, so that’d be 20ish seconds of benefiting from the buff followed by 5 seconds without the buff before they can be summoned again.

But yes. Shouts are about our interaction with the pet. They should be about improving the functionality of the pet when used to give us more control over what the pet does and provide more ways for us to use the the pet to bolster our own abilities. Shouts are a utility set for Beastmasters who need more interaction with their pet, not for marksmen who want to buff random people nearby.

Survival = General purpose defensive skills that improve the ranger’s survival.
Spirits = Strong group buffing support skills to improve the party.
Shouts = Pet utilities that improve pet functionality and give more pet options.
Signets = Largely selfish offensive and defensive skills to give the ranger an edge.

don’t wanna let this thread die, so bumb

I’d like to see Guard become “Strike as One”, the same as the GW1 skill. Just change the Bleed to a semi-long duration Torment. Same CD as Guard. Hooray, useful!

Hmm, I think I would like to see either “Guard!” or “Protect Me!” provide an AoE taunt centered on the pet and an AoE Protection or Aegis on the ranger (and possibly allies). Ultimately, I would like to see “Sic ’Em!” become similar to “Strike as One”, as Heimskarl suggested for “Guard!”, and base pet damage buffed, rather than relying on SE’s finicky (and gimmicky) buff.

As long as people have new ideas ill try to keep the thread going.

@ Heimskarl. The idea of a petapult skill is definetly one I like. And I really hope anet one day adds it in. But the nature of the games combat leads me to believe they won’t. Also that would involve completely removing the original guard skill and creating an entirely new one. Im not sure thats feasable. And if it is. It’s functionality seems to fit sic em more readily as Scrimschaw said

@ Scrimschaw Keep in mind that any additions to guard or protect me will probably affect there cooldown if there just straight additions (judging by past experience). Though I suppose its possible they may leave the cooldowns as is if the skills base is as under performing or situational as these can be.

But with something as massively powerful as aoe protection or taunt. I find it likely that atleast 5-10 seconds would be added to the cooldown…if not more.

Part of what makes guard nice in its current functionality is you can readily pop it to “force” the pet to use one of its special abilities. As guard resets its attack patterns (or seems to) This is great with canines as it encourages it to use either of its hard hitting abilities. Now of course this still isn’t enough to encourage its use in the majority of gameplay. But it does allow for some interesting play. With the longer cooldowns people that have been using guard regularly will lose the frequent access to this.

The idea of aoe boons for shouts is interesting. But things that affect the party in that manner typicaly have much longer cooldowns than guard does. The end result is actually the possibility of guard being BETTER at doing this than those other utilities with longer cooldowns. Which would mean guard would have to be balanced accordingly back down.

How would you have it actually function so that its useful. But still balanced.

Edit: What I mean is. How/where would the boons be deployed. At what range. And in what manner. Keep in mind the other skills that provide similar boon support in this game. And the nature of ranger shouts.

I will say however. That GW1 has ALOT of incredible pet based skills that I wish were in gw2 as shouts haha. “Strike as One” is just one of them.

Shadelang.3012:

As long as people have new ideas ill try to keep the thread going.

@ Heimskarl. The idea of a petapult skill is definetly one I like. And I really hope anet one day adds it in. But the nature of the games combat leads me to believe they won’t. Also that would involve completely removing the original guard skill and creating an entirely new one. Im not sure thats feasable. And if it is. It’s functionality seems to fit sic em more readily as Scrimschaw said

@ Scrimschaw Keep in mind that any additions to guard or protect me will probably affect there cooldown if there just straight additions (judging by past experience). Though I suppose its possible they may leave the cooldowns as is if the skills base is as under performing or situational as these can be.

But with something as massively powerful as aoe protection or taunt. I find it likely that atleast 5-10 seconds would be added to the cooldown…if not more.

Part of what makes guard nice in its current functionality is you can readily pop it to “force” the pet to use one of its special abilities. As guard resets its attack patterns (or seems to) This is great with canines as it encourages it to use either of its hard hitting abilities. Now of course this still isn’t enough to encourage its use in the majority of gameplay. But it does allow for some interesting play. With the longer cooldowns people that have been using guard regularly will lose the frequent access to this.

The idea of aoe boons for shouts is interesting. But things that affect the party in that manner typicaly have much longer cooldowns than guard does. The end result is actually the possibility of guard being BETTER at doing this than those other utilities with longer cooldowns. Which would mean guard would have to be balanced accordingly back down.

How would you have it actually function so that its useful. But still balanced.

I would like “Sic ’Em!” to replace Guard as a low-CD, spammable skill that can work as a reset for pets. The pet targeting function of “Guard!” IMO should be a base function of pets (for example, the f1 acting as a ground-targeted skill if no enemies are selected, or locking the pet on a target when one is selected. Yes, this might be a terrible idea, but I did just come up with it on the fly :P) If Guard is changed so it ONLY causes the pet to taunt in an AoE, and provides Aegis or Protection on the ranger, I would expect the cooldown to be about 30s (24 when traited). Because Taunt is no longer unblockable/unevadeable, I wouldn’t go much higher than 35s base. Should it apply Aegis or Protection on allies as well, I would expect the cooldown to be about 40 seconds base, the same as Guardian’s “Retreat!” (which also applies swiftness on allies).

I think “Protect Me!” would be interesting as a lower-cooldown skill that doesn’t tread on Signet of Stone’s toes (I also would like to see a stunbreak on SoS if “Protect Me!” is changed). If keeping the same cooldown…perhaps having the pet leap at the target + knockdown/immobilize/daze/etc. (won’t lie, I would love to see a pet teleport skill too), applying…hmm, stunbreak + 2-3s stealth and superspeed on the ranger? A simple protection/aegis on the ranger? Something that won’t nuke my poor pet would be great.

On a shallow note: I dislike the icons of ranger shouts. I wish they all matched the theme of “We Heal as One!” and “Strength of the Pack!” (which I frequently call “We Rampage as One!” in my head.)

Scrimschaw.5784:

Shadelang.3012:

As long as people have new ideas ill try to keep the thread going.

@ Heimskarl. The idea of a petapult skill is definetly one I like. And I really hope anet one day adds it in. But the nature of the games combat leads me to believe they won’t. Also that would involve completely removing the original guard skill and creating an entirely new one. Im not sure thats feasable. And if it is. It’s functionality seems to fit sic em more readily as Scrimschaw said

@ Scrimschaw Keep in mind that any additions to guard or protect me will probably affect there cooldown if there just straight additions (judging by past experience). Though I suppose its possible they may leave the cooldowns as is if the skills base is as under performing or situational as these can be.

But with something as massively powerful as aoe protection or taunt. I find it likely that atleast 5-10 seconds would be added to the cooldown…if not more.

Part of what makes guard nice in its current functionality is you can readily pop it to “force” the pet to use one of its special abilities. As guard resets its attack patterns (or seems to) This is great with canines as it encourages it to use either of its hard hitting abilities. Now of course this still isn’t enough to encourage its use in the majority of gameplay. But it does allow for some interesting play. With the longer cooldowns people that have been using guard regularly will lose the frequent access to this.

The idea of aoe boons for shouts is interesting. But things that affect the party in that manner typicaly have much longer cooldowns than guard does. The end result is actually the possibility of guard being BETTER at doing this than those other utilities with longer cooldowns. Which would mean guard would have to be balanced accordingly back down.

How would you have it actually function so that its useful. But still balanced.

I would like “Sic ’Em!” to replace Guard as a low-CD, spammable skill that can work as a reset for pets. The pet targeting function of “Guard!” IMO should be a base function of pets (for example, the f1 acting as a ground-targeted skill if no enemies are selected, or locking the pet on a target when one is selected. Yes, this might be a terrible idea, but I did just come up with it on the fly :P) If Guard is changed so it ONLY causes the pet to taunt in an AoE, and provides Aegis or Protection on the ranger, I would expect the cooldown to be about 30s (24 when traited). Because Taunt is no longer unblockable/unevadeable, I wouldn’t go much higher than 35s base. Should it apply Aegis or Protection on allies as well, I would expect the cooldown to be about 40 seconds base, the same as Guardian’s “Retreat!” (which also applies swiftness on allies).

I think “Protect Me!” would be interesting as a lower-cooldown skill that doesn’t tread on Signet of Stone’s toes (I also would like to see a stunbreak on SoS if “Protect Me!” is changed). If keeping the same cooldown…perhaps having the pet leap at the target + knockdown/immobilize/daze/etc. (won’t lie, I would love to see a pet teleport skill too), applying…hmm, stunbreak + 2-3s stealth and superspeed on the ranger? A simple protection/aegis on the ranger? Something that won’t nuke my poor pet would be great.

On a shallow note: I dislike the icons of ranger shouts. I wish they all matched the theme of “We Heal as One!” and “Strength of the Pack!” (which I frequently call “We Rampage as One!” in my head.)

The idea of sic em becoming hte low cooldown shout is interesting. as it would also assist in allaying some of its issues without requiring a true rework. Though that would be the easy way out it would do the job in a sense. I imagine that would cause the reveal to be nerfed in duration. But if we have it more often then it becomes a semi skill shot skill instead of a blanket debuff. I wouldn’t be opposed to that.

So if sic ems cooldown was say. 15-20 seconds when traited. It could be used fairly reliably in combat. Meaning the pet would be able to reliably use its damage boost. Because even if you canceled it. It will probably be back in 10ish seconds. (again this is the easy way out) I would guess that the reveal would drop to 3 seconds in duration. Long enough to interfere with a restealth. But not so long as to deprive a thief of an entire shadow refuge once every 20 seconds haha.

If Sic ’Em also reset the pet rotation it would be a far stronger skill as well. On demand use of Tail Swipe with the damage multiplier means a drake could be pushing out 6-9K damage. It would also make it possible to set up with Remorseless and other boosts making the landing of a pet burst far more reliable.

It also makes sense that telling your pet to chase down their target would cause the pet to lead with their strongest hit.

Ehecatl.9172:

If Sic ’Em also reset the pet rotation it would be a far stronger skill as well. On demand use of Tail Swipe with the damage multiplier means a drake could be pushing out 6-9K damage. It would also make it possible to set up with Remorseless and other boosts making the landing of a pet burst far more reliable.

It also makes sense that telling your pet to chase down their target would cause the pet to lead with their strongest hit.

agreed. It of course won’t bypass there internal cooldowns. But if it reliably activated key attacks. We would be given needed control that at the moment is lacking for a true beast mastery focused playstyle.

im actually interested to know what percentage of the ranger community would like to see our shouts transition to more group support (maybe as a traited option), or keep them as they are, a more pet/master command type system. Cuz it seems to me like some of the stuff our shouts do should be something we get base.

Could you imagine getting protect me, guard, and search and rescue base? more or less ya know…F6 / F7 / F8

I can dream…

I’d like to see it do both, commands which make the pet do something which then benefits the group.

I don’t mind them supporting the group. However I feel it should be support through something the pet DOES. Something that should make an ally happy when they see the pet there. Not just some arbitrary boon thats randomly fired out of the pet. But a more tangable thing the pet actually does. Whether its crippling enemies that are near that ally making them easier to hit. Or actively healing that ally. Protecting it during an enemy burst. Or taunting enemies into an area so that there more easily managed.