Hey all. Some of you might know me from my original shout rework threat located here. Edit: Also the proposal is at the end underneath the caps if you don’t care about the reasoning.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Shout-UTILITY-thread-remade/first
To make the back story short. I have played shout ranger since the beginning of the game. And feel that I have pushed its limits as far as it can go as far as skill and mechanical knowledge is concerned. What I mean by shout ranger is a full utility bar of shouts. Typically (atm) Heal as one, Guard, Protect me, Sic em, and Strength of the Pack (in there current forms).
In my previous thread I attempted to gather suggestions on how to rework shouts to be more relevant to the game. As most shouts simply didn’t do anything significant.
Shortly after that post Sic Em was altered in a way that vastly improved its usability. Fixing an issue that has prevented it from being a reliable skill since the start of the game. I know its likely a coincidence but I still like to think I had something to do with it (let me have my ego PLEASE >.<).
So what are shout utilities. To put it simply ranger shout utilties are commands that are meant to enhance an aspect of the pet or give it access to a new capability for a short period of time.
Guard gives the pet protection and stealths the pet.
Protect me causes the pet to take damage for you for a short time.
Sic Em enhances the pets movement speed and causes it to deal more damage.
Search and Rescue causees the pet to attempt to heal a nearby downed ally.
So whats the problem?
To put it simply. In most aspects of the game shouts don’t do ENOUGH. Or the pet isn’t capable of doing enough with that shout.
A bear with sic em is just as pointless for dealing damage as a bear without sic em.
Who cares if the moa is stealthed.
That bird isn’t going to rez kitten if there is down cleave unless your holding its hand (I am looking at you bark skin).
Protect me is largely worthless if your using a cat since it does true damage (unmitigatable by any method).
What this means is that in there original forms. Shout utilties only seem to work with specific pets to significant results.
(A stealthed canine has a very good chance of landing its leap)
(A Bear can rez for days or soak damage from protect me for almost the full duration before dieing)
(Birds and cats benefit ALOT from sic em)
This creates an issue when attempting to utilize the shout utilities to there fullest. Because you have to be very careful in what pets you chose take. In my experience canines are typically your best bet. There decent general pets that can benefit from each aspect of shouts.
However even ontop of that there are further issues with the mechanics of the skills themselves.
Guard can’t actually be used to defend locations any better than you acting as a turret with a longbow can. This skill did its job fine before the Leash range change early in the games history. But ever since that change. The leash range is so small the pet will actually become permanently passive even if an enemy is standing right ontop of it if you leave it on a point to check another location.
Protect Me is inherently harmful to use. It causes the pet to take “true damage” that you would have taken. What I mean by this is the damage it takes is unmitigated by your armor. Its armor. Any boons either of you have. Or even traits such as bark skin.
Also due to the nature of combat its actually quite rare for anything besides a ranged pet to be sitting at high enough health to make use of it propperly. Usually in order to use it safely your forced to pet swap and THEN use it.
To make matters worse. The pet actually deactivates and turns passive while this is up. And attempting to utilize it in any way will cancel the effect. This means you can’t use that wolf fear to try to peal for you. Or try to get it to knock the guy hitting you down. Or else you leave yourself open to all the damage when your probably low on health. Meaning that when you use protect me. Its a gamble that the pet taking damage for you is more beneficial to you then having the pet continue attacking. Im sure you can all imagine how having a large chunk of your damage suddenly stop working can be a bad thing.
Search and Rescue is inherently bad as a utility. But its very good as a trait. Like the above 2 it causes the pet to become passive and run towards a downed body near YOU (not its always near you and not the pet). What this means is that in order for you to use this skill you have to already be where there is very likely a large amount of cleave in order to trigger the skill. This puts you at risk before you have even used it.
As the pet reaches the downed ally it is very likely it will be subjected to levels of aoe that the vast majority of our pets simply can’t survive. Whether its a champion mordrem snipers fire line. Or a mesmers gravity well combined with a revenants condi cleave.
Also the pet has no means on its own to resist CCs. So all the downcleave thats going on will not only kill the pet. But also prevent it from functioning at all unless you burn a cooldown to cover it in stabiltiy.
This ability works fine as a trait. As it occurs automatically when you rez. And you don’t have to sacrifice anything or take any EXTRA risks in order to make it work.
Sic Em is our best example of a well designed shout. As it has two aspects of use to it. You can use it to boost your pets speed and damage. Or you can use it to apply reveal to a target. Making the skill potentially useful no matter what pet you have taken.
REWORK CONCEPT BEGINS HERE. IF YOU SKIPPED THE ABOVE THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART
My current proposal will be to add that duel functionality to the other 3 shout utilities. Giving them a wider range of purely situational uses that will help loosen the restriction on pet choices for each shout while still retaining there core functionality.
Guard. What I would do with this utility is add a mechanic that causes the pets BASIC attack to strip one boon per hit with a 2 second ICD as long as the pet is withing the targeted area.
This will allow pets to pressure enemies within there range of influence not through raw damage but through a secondary effect that goes within the line of “Punishing enemies that enter this area”. Whether that be a necro losing swiftness to a stealthed pet that was blocking the road and taking a little longer to reaching his destination.
Or stripping protection from a tempest that is attempting to take the point the pet is overwatching.
Protect Me: For this skill I would have this skill grant 3 seconds of resistance to the ranger and the pet. Making it an effective “break away” skill. Where you break your stun and you have a short time to escape. This also allows the pet to break free of any engagement its caught in and retreat to your side. So you can more easily command it to fight whatever has attacked you.
Search and Rescue: I would have this skill pulse stability in the affected area while it is rezzing your ally as the pet attempts to further bolster your allies. This enables the pet to perform the role of rezzing. While still leaving it susceptible to heavy down cleave. But it also helps protect allies that are attempting to assist in the rez. Or attempting to shut down the enemy down cleave. Which further reinforces the pets ability to perform its job.
If you have any comments, Ideas, Objections or the like please feel free to post. My previous post only got where it did due to community feedback on the subject. I would like this to be the same.
(edited by Shadelang.3012)