Guild Wars 2

Shouts are a skill set that rangers share with warriors and guardians, but while the other two use their shouts to bolster themselves and their allies and command the battlefield, rangers use theirs to command their animal companion. Unfortunately, the shouts fall short of being especially strong, for the most part. Here are some changes that I think could make shouts not only useful, but the center piece in new builds that would add a new element to PVP.

Guard: Allow your pet to contest strategic points in SPVP and WvWvW while Guard is active. This would add a whole new dimension to the skill, and give a very good reason to take a tanky pet like a bear into an SPVP match. In SPVP the fact everyone is forced to fight inside a single, small circle is a massive benefit in favor of tanky, melee heavy builds. This would allow a squishier ranged build an effective means to kite the melee without risking losing the strategic point.

As a secondary aspect to this change have Guard, once activated, change into a “Heel” command that forces the pet to remain stationary on the point designated by Guard, this way the ranger can choose between letting the pet pursue enemies in Guard’s area of effect or forcing the pet to stand at the center and not pursue, giving more tactical options to it’s use.

I feel like removing stealth from the skill would be an acceptable compensation if it needs it. Besides that, the stealth functionality of the skill would no longer be required.

Search and Rescue: Allow the pet to revive at a normal rate. I’ve just sacrificed a utility slot to save lives, making my pet revive at a snail’s pace won’t make a difference in a large battle. More importantly however, reduce the cool down of this skill from the absurd 85 seconds to a much, much more reasonable 15 seconds. No one considers the revival of a single ally per battle worth a utility slot, and rightfully so. However, if the skill could be used multiple times in each team fight the value of the skill would increase exponentially. Suddenly you can regularly revive an ally without inhibiting your ability to keep up the pressure on the enemy team, or pairing up with your pet to revive an ally at double speed. Rangers suddenly have a unique role in team fights as field medics, which gives them more options to contribute to team fights than just their spirit build.

Consequently, this would also make Stability Training worth taking as a trait.

Sick ‘Em: Allow this to cause your pet to teleport behind the target, basically functioning life steal for the pet. This would allow pets to overcome terrain problems and allow the ranger to have their pet position itself more favorably. No more sitting from a vantage point and having your pet unable to attack, or watching your enemy jump up a ledge to completely escape the pet’s attacks!

(Continue on Second Post)

Protect Me: Allow us to still contest points with this active. It’s very close in resemblance to Endure Pain, the warrior skill that has the same cool down and makes the warrior take no damage from incoming attacks for it’s duration. It doesn’t prevent contesting points because it’s not a true invulnerability. Well, neither is Protect Me. The damage still gets applied, it’s just redirected to the pet. The same pet that makes up 30% of the ranger’s damage output. Protect Me is a risky maneuver that could well end up crippling you by killing your pet if you don’t switch in time, and only has a finite amount of damage it can absorb as it ends when the pet is taken down. Because of this inherent risk to the skill and it’s overall limits I don’t see a reason why it should prevent the ranger from contesting a point.

Rangers are meant to be masters of their environment. Explorers and survivors who live off the land and commune with great beasts to thrive where no one else can. Our companions are more than just pets, they are our partners. We depend on them to survive the harsh wilderness. It only seems natural that our shouts, the means by which we communicate with our companion, would allow us to guide them in helping us capitalize on the terrain to fight our enemies.

Bumping this fore feedback. Added another change to Sick ’Em.

Your guard is too focused on PVP, search and destroy shouldn’t exist, sic’em is too one sided and protect me should have much lower cooldown.

Shouts should in my opinion be totally reworked into something new. They still have to keep the focus on pets. Basically, a full BM build should want to use a full Shout build.

Shouts are also the only thing that can address AI issues. For example, a low cooldown (10 to 20 seconds) skill that can teleport the pet to the target covers (not fixes) the path-finding problem. A second low cooldown skill can give the pet superspeed and quickness so that it hits reliably. Etc

Your wall of text is not very clear to read. No structure in it and that might be the reason why you don’t get replies!

You forgot, make “heal as one” a shout.

My suggestion for Sic’em:

• Increase duration to 12 seconds
• Remove reveal debuff
• Add the ability for the pet only to keep track of and attack enemies even while they’re in stealth
• Remove bonus damage
• Add swiftness to the pet for the duration of the skill
• Cripple target upon activation for 2 seconds

I find this to be a more interesting way of dealing with stealth. Of course, this would make the skill useless in pve though…

*

Heal as one as a shout, yes please! Also give this heal the unique ability of reviving a downed pet back to life with 50% of health.

solrik.6028:

Your guard is too focused on PVP, search and destroy shouldn’t exist, sic’em is too one sided and protect me should have much lower cooldown.

Shouts should in my opinion be totally reworked into something new. They still have to keep the focus on pets. Basically, a full BM build should want to use a full Shout build.

Shouts are also the only thing that can address AI issues. For example, a low cooldown (10 to 20 seconds) skill that can teleport the pet to the target covers (not fixes) the path-finding problem. A second low cooldown skill can give the pet superspeed and quickness so that it hits reliably. Etc

Your wall of text is not very clear to read. No structure in it and that might be the reason why you don’t get replies!

Guard already has a use for PVE in that it keeps protection on the pet for a good duration. My focus was to give it a new, unique trait that can be effective in PVP.

Search and Rescue I feel could have value. It just need to not be on such an ungodly long cooldown, and if you took Nature’s Voice it’d be a free source of perma swiftness and regen with my fix, similar to Guard.

I do agree with you though. Shouts have the potential to be a good way to alleviate the issues of a poor AI. Personally, the AI is adequate for a build not revolving around the pet, but for a beastmaster ranger especially who relies so much on the pet for damage they just need more control. In particular that’s why I added a teleport for the pet on to Sick ‘Em. I’ve spent too many matches in PVP where my pet didn’t follow me in the clock tower or I was on a perch and my pet would just stand there, unable to find a path.

I did think that I could re-organize this. I admit, I tend to ramble and my posts can get too long. I’ll probably reformat it so it’s more readable.

good topic and i agree that the other shouts needs looking into and not only “sic’em”

OGDeadHead.8326:

My suggestion for Sic’em:

• Add swiftness to the pet for the duration of the skill

I find this to be a more interesting way of dealing with stealth. Of course, this would make the skill useless in pve though…

.

“Sic ’Em (10s): 40% Damage, 40% Movement Speed”

Adding switfness seems kind of redundant..
However, making it so the skill doesn’t cancel while using the F2 skill would be a nice start..

@OP

Guard: if the pet stands still it is just going to melt, even with a bear and having protection. The problem I’ve had with guard (outside of condi regen based on 1 trait…) is it doesn’t really guard anything since it cannot contest. So yes to that part, but it should rather than give invisibility give some condi duration reduction or some bonus survivability for the sake of pvp. As for pve, it would still work in turning your pet tank into a even stronger pet tank (some enemies do use conditions).

Search & Rescue: It really should be a drastically lower cooldown given most people can just stomp the target before the pet does anything. Give that it is the only function of search and rescue, it should be a little better functioning. Maybe when the pet arrives at the target ally’s location, an option for that ally to “get up” and the pet will have a 2nd cast on S&R to go towards a certain location with that ally to take them to safety. There are some pvp only related skills and it would be nice if you could depend on a skill like this. I’d say only slightly reduce the cooldown to something like 45 seconds with such a change, 18 (+ traits) is just too little given the shout traits.

Sic’ Em: no, no, no. You can’t Band-Aid fix an entire profession mechanic with a utility skill. The pathing issue should be solved period, especially when they have birds that need to take the scenic route over ledges (water combat traveling xyz axis says hello to birds…). As far as removing the reveal, its odd to have something simply apply reveal but it’s one of those neat tricks you get. Sadly engineer adapted and copy pasted the same thing so it isn’t as unique anymore but the idea is still there, “hunt that guy down boy!”. I’d be nice if the effect lasted a little longer but I think its a nice skill for pet enthusiasts and doesn’t need to teleport anything anywhere.

Guard: No argument really, especially since it can be negated once the pet dies and without a beefy pet, it will die. I’d prefer if it just transfer x% to your pet rather than 100%. It would certainly be an incentive to bring a beefy pet with this skill if you’re using say GS and trying to keep a point on your side.

@NinjaEd

Your Search and Rescue idea is interesting. Basically have the pet move the target ally out of the fray. If nothing else that’d give the downed ally more time to rally since the enemy wouldn’t be able to stomp for that duration.

As for Sick ‘Em, while I know fixing one utility won’t fix pets in general there is little to no hope of Anet ever fixing the pathing issues. They can’t improve the pet AI. At the very least making Sick ‘Em a teleport would allow people already taking the skill and who rely heavily on pet damage, like myself, to get the pet into position more easily. I’d prefer to not remove the reveal as well since I do use that quite a lot to mess with thieves.

I had this idea for guard:

Guard – 45 sec cooldown

• orders your pet to guard target location for 15 seconds, it gains 15 seconds of protection
• activate Guard again during those 15 seconds to teleport to your pets location
• cooldown starts after those 15 sec or when swapping pets or when activating the teleport

I’m not sure I like your suggestions.

As it is right now, the only reason to use guard at all is because of Nature’s Voice. Your change isn’t changing much other than to add a ‘heel’ command to the pet that honestly should be built into the standard pet UI and shouldn’t require a utility skill.

Protect Me is also somewhat redundant now that signets work without trait investment.

I say rework both of them completely to fill in some of the utility problems this class has.

Change guard to be an exact copy of For Great Justice. Instant cast, 25 second cooldown, grants might and fury.

Protect Me could be changed to closely resemble Hold the Line. Instant cast, 25 second cooldown, grants protection for 6 seconds.

That’s how I would improve these 2 shouts.

Now as to your original suggestion for Guard and how you want it to interact with the pet. If someone doesn’t take Nature’s Voice, there’s still no real reason to use the shout.

But what if the Ranger class didn’t need to use a utility slot to use a shout skill? What if the Ranger had a utility slot given to their pet (or it replaced the default F2 for your pet) that you could slot a shout into?

Lazze.9870:

OGDeadHead.8326:

My suggestion for Sic’em:

• Add swiftness to the pet for the duration of the skill

I find this to be a more interesting way of dealing with stealth. Of course, this would make the skill useless in pve though…

.

“Sic ’Em (10s): 40% Damage, 40% Movement Speed”

Adding switfness seems kind of redundant..
However, making it so the skill doesn’t cancel while using the F2 skill would be a nice start..

Ah yes, sorry ’bout that, lol! Never ever used this for its increase in running speed.

Anywaysee, I’d like this skill to shadowstep to the target, cripple, and go to town, not wasting a single second. And I still like the idea of the pet keepin’ track of the enemy -while in stealth- a lot more interesting than applying reveal.

Guard should be changed to a simple buff to our pets only. Make it instant cast, give pets retaliation, aegis, regeneration and protection. Grant blind on pets first attack, poison anyone that attacks the pet for 5 seconds/strike. Duration 15 seconds, cd 45 seconds.