Curse

Chthon · Apr 11, 2009, 08:48 PM // 20:48

In celebration of the upcoming "petting zoo" I'd like to post a few suggested balance changes to make pets something worth using (in PvE at least).

(Mods, if you feel this thread is more Sardelac-themed than Ranger-themed, you can move it there.)

1. Bar Compression for Pet Rez

The problem: The cost of two skillslots just to have the pet present is insanely high. Considering what else you can do with two skillslots, nothing a pet can do is ever good enough to justify that cost. Until this equation changes, pets are going to remain a casual/roleplayer-only thing. One side of changing this equation is lowering the skill-slot cost of having a pet; the other side is increasing the value the pet gives you for its cost. I want to start with how to lower the skill-slot cost.

Folks have been hollering for a veeeery long time that Charm and Comfort need to be compressed into one skill. I've got no idea why a-net still hasn't done this. The need is very obvious. One possibility is that they're simply clueless. The other possibility that I can think of is that adding a rez functionality to Charm is technically difficult for the programmers to do. Let's assume the second possibility.

OK, so merging Comfort into Charm is out. But that doesn't mean bar-compression of the pet rez is a lost cause. We can still compress Comfort into some other skill that people might bring anyway (in a serious PvE build). I would suggest:
- Add a pet rez effect to Never Rampage Alone.
- Add a pet rez effect to Companionship.
- Add a pet rez effect to a select few Monk rezzes.
[Edit: To be clear about the monk rezzes. I don't suggest adding a pet rez effest to all monk rezzes. I suggest sticking it on a couple of touch-range rezzes or really sucky rezzes -- probably Renew Life and/or Restore Life and/or Light of Dwayna. Depending how you look at it, this is imposing a cost on the beastmaster in exchange for the bar compression -- use a bad rez -- or it's buffing bad rezzes into better skills.]

There, now you can rez your pet without needing to spend an entire second skill to do so. The cost for "just bringing a pet" has been lowered to "a skill-slot, plus a forced selection of your IAS, self-heal, or hard rez." (And the hard rez doesn't even have to be on the ranger's bar.)

One final thing: To prevent Comfort from falling into total disuse, it should be buffed. I suggest adding condition removal. Something like "...and you and your pet are cured of 1...3 conditions." Ironically, that buff might be good enough for some people to choose to keep Comfort instead of moving to a different pet rez.

[Edit: Also, Heal As One would need a buff. It's pretty obvious that this skill was designed with the thought that "pet rez bar compression for an elite slot is a pretty good trade, so people will use pets now." It's equally obvious that thought was dead wrong. This skill utterly failed to entice people to use pets for serious PvE (or PvP).]

[Edit: As an alternative to adding a pet rez to other skills, zwei2stein suggests making a pet rez consumable. Costs an inventory slot, but oh well. Probably easy to code too.]

Now let's talk about making the pet do more.
2. Change the Pet Damage Equation

The problem: Unless you sink a ton of points into beastmastery, pet damage is very, very weak. This tends to strongly discourage people from using pets in "hybrid" builds since the pet does basically no damage. So, it's "full beastmaster or nothing," and folks tend to go with "nothing" since full beastmasters aren't very good in PVE. I'm going to dedicate the remainder of my points to improving full beastmasters enough that someone would want to use them for serious PvE, but first I want to talk about making pet damage worthwhile for hybrids.

Right now, an elder pet is treated as a 17-29 weapon and beastmastery is treated as a weapon mastery. I propose the following change: A pet should function as a slightly weaker weapon (maybe 15-22 or 14-27) with pet-level * 3 mastery, plus a damage bonus of +1 armor-sensitive damage per level of beastmastery. The practical effect of this change is that a pet with no investment in beastmastery becomes roughly equivalent to a 12-mastery sword or spear guy under a decreased-attack-speed hex; and a pet with a high investment in beasmastery becomes roughly equivalent to a hammer guy with the same investment in hammer mastery.

[Edit, just to be a bit more clear. The goal of this proposal is to bring a low-spec pet's damage into line with things like asura summons, vanguard assassins, spirit of vampirism, and even low-spec minions -- all of which do more damage than a low-spec pet right now. The basic idea is that a pet should have its own mastery based on its level, and beastmastery rank should only supply a small bonus on top of that. The exact numbers can be adjusted from there.]
3. Pet Buffs --> Party Buffs

The problem: Since the arrival of SY! and Paragons, people have finally realized the superiority of party-buffs over "selfish buffs." A weaker effect multiplied across several allies provides more bang for the buck than a stronger effect for just yourself. Unfortunately for the beastmaster, all of his buffs are selfish buffs.

My solution for this is to change most or all of the pet-buffs into "mobile mini-wards." For example, Call of Protection could become: "For 120 seconds, your animal companion has a 5...17 base damage reduction, and all allies near your animal companion have a 1...8 base damage reduction." Similar ward-ifications could be done for Call of Haste, Feral Aggression, Otyugh's Cry, and possibly Predatory Bond and Symbiotic Bond.

With such buffs, a beastmaster could be strong enough that organized teams melee might think of replacing their current melee support (be that Orders Bitch, Motigon, Commadagon, Wolfen) with a beastmaster.

[Edit: In response to criticisms that this would be overpowered: The idea is to make a dedicated BM on par with the current buff-bitch build options, not better. Probably the closest analogy is the (non-imbagon) paragon with his unstripable shouts. The numbers should be tweaked so that the party-buff strength, adjusted for uptime ratio, roughly equals a motigon or cammandagon, not more or less.]

Additionally, it has the added effect of encouraging people to actually use the pet controls and think about the pet's positioning. Lock the pet on the warrior's called target to guarantee the warrior an attack buff; Heel the pet to move Call of Protection onto your backline; Such possibilities make playing party buffer less braindead than using shouts or spamming Orders. (Just in case it wasn't clear, the idea is that the "mini-ward" moves with the pet, so positioning matters.)
4. Better Pet Attacks

The problem: Pet attacks suck. Pets have two decent single-target attacks (Enraged Lunge and Brutal Strike), and that's about it. [Edit: And Scavenger Strike is decent e-management!] Some of the attacks could be useful with just a little tweak. In addition, the pets need some skills to bring them into the "buff plus leverage" paradigm that produces the bulk of the damage on good physical teams.

Skills that would work if they were tweaked are:
- Bestial Mauling - make the pet attack at interrupt speed.
- Savage/Bestial Pounce - make the pet attack at interrupt speed.
- Disrupting Lunge - make the pet attack at interrupt speed.
- Ferocious Strike - lower recharge to 5 and make the adrenaline gain scale with with beastmastery. (Hello, Mr. SY! Beastmaster.)
In the "buff plus leverage" paradigm, physicals provide leverage. That means we need some multi-hit attacks.

First, I'd start with Mel's Assault. Make it actually hit the adjacent foes, remove the condition, and lower the cost and recharge enough to make it spammable. If that leaves it overpowered, lower the damage. What we're looking for is basically Cyclone Axe or Whirlwind Attack on a pet.

Second, take any of the remaining garbage attack skills (Pounce maybe) and convert it into a spammable double-strike skill like Sun and Moon Strike.

[edit: In response to "but then it's overpowered since you're a ranger controlling a warrior": By the time you've dedicated enough attributes and skillslots to making the pet into a "warrior," you're not much of a ranger anymore. Your real character is the fur-covered one and the one with a bow is just for show.]
5. Beastmastery Weapon (?)

Finally, no discussion of buffing beastmastery would be complete without mentioning another long-sought-after change -- a weapon tied to beastmastery.

(I should add that I'm not totally sure this is needed. I think the 4 points outlined above probably do "enough" to make pets useful. Nonetheless, a beastmastery weapon is frequently asked for, so I should at least mention it.)

[edit: It seems that people really hate this idea. Perhaps it's better ignored then.]

The problem is that dedicated beastmasters are forced to cough up at least 9 attribute points in a line they aren't using skills from just to meet their bow's (or spear's) requirement. Add to that a pretty much mandatory investment in Expertise, and the beastmaster is left with no possibility of making use of his or her secondary -- there's just not enough skillpoints. (Not that there's enough skillslots either, but compressing the pet rez would create space for that potential.)

The "sexy" way of doing it would be to create a new weapon type tied to beastmastery. A whip is often mentioned. Unfortunately, that would require new animations, so it's probably never going to happen.

The other possibility is to make bows, spears, or both drop with beastmastery requirements.

[edit: I'm going to steal some ideas that people have posted thoughout the thread and repost them here:]
6. Revert the No-Corpse Nerf

Pretty self-explanatory.
7. Pet Attacks Should Queue Instead of Cancel

Also pretty self-explanatory.

Since a-net has seen fit to give us a great pet stable (or at least something that sounds like it's going to be a great pet stable), it would be a real shame if pets remained so bad that no one uses them. I hope that some variations on these changes are considered for the following balance update.

Discuss, please.

Shayne Hawke · Apr 11, 2009, 10:02 PM // 22:02

For starters, you certainly have the right idea that the addition of the Menagerie doesn't really make bringing pets into PvE or PvP any more viable.

I rather like your suggestions and arguments on the first, third, and fourth points of discussion. Two and five seem to go together, since it goes with a similar issue that you're either putting damage dealing to yourself, your pet, or splitting it between the two of you and making it somewhat weak.

I can't follow the numbers so easily with how the pet deals damage now in comparison to other weapons at whatever levels, but having a weapon that beastmasters could use easily without splitting the attributes so scarcely would be a plus. Spears may be out of the question, since they aren't currently found in two of the campaigns. I might believe a bow with a BM requirement could be okay, but that almost sounds like it would make Marksmanship less desirable. Perhaps gimp the bow's damage a little?

own age myname · Apr 11, 2009, 10:14 PM // 22:14

These are all really good ideas. I can see Anet actually implanting some of them..

I actually want a reason for my ranger to use her Lynx

Hanging Man · Apr 11, 2009, 10:20 PM // 22:20

pets for me are always a love/hate thing.

I love the fact that you can bring a pet into battle, but hate how much pets suck in battle.
Like you said, two skills for a pet is ridiculous. Merging charm and comfort makes sense to me.
Also I would like Anet to change the pet AI. make it so pets are always attacking what you attack. usually I find pets to lag behind my target, there hitting one while im hitting the other.

but im pumped for this pet update

dasmitchies · Apr 11, 2009, 10:23 PM // 22:23

Great ideas. I would suggest submitting them as possible GW2 ideas. Outside of changing comfort animal, everything you suggested would demand heavy rewrites of large chunks of game code. Beast mastery weapons won't happen period. Resing pets with monk skills won't happen. Adding to all the headaches with the code ANET has massive issues with pve AI whenever pet functions are seriously changed. You have to remember the game is 4 years old.

Expherious · Apr 11, 2009, 10:29 PM // 22:29

If bows with Beast Mastery Req dropped EL builds would soak up RA.

Xsiriss · Apr 11, 2009, 10:50 PM // 22:50

You rock. they should so implemented this stuff and of course MAKE MOSS SPIDERS FRIGGIN CHARMABLE. There may be issues with pvp as expherious pointed out, but that's a minor thing and i'd rather see pets OP'd than pathetic.

Axel Zinfandel · Apr 11, 2009, 10:51 PM // 22:51

Although some of your proposed changes would are a bit over the top, the basic idea is behind it all is a MUCH needed change.

I don't, however, agree with Beast Mastery attribute weapons. That sort of change so late in GW would only mess things up. Since splitting between BM and weapon attribute is essentially like bringing two weapons into battle, it should be treated as such.

However the MAIN issue with BM builds is the sheer lack of space on the skill bar. combining Comfort+Charm would help immensely, but I really wish that they would implement a more passive way of allowing a pet into battle instead of having to throw Charm Animal on the board..

For instance adding it into the actual attribute itself (much like energy gain and soul reaping) and make the formula either scale with level or available attribute points. That way it forces you to invest points in BM to bring a pet, preventing gimmicks in people bringing pets simply as meat shields.

Another option, IMO, would be to implement a small 4/5 skill bar simply for a pet. However, this is much less likely as I would think it'd take more resources then they have at this point.

All in all, I think we NEED the following
-Compressed bars
-Better pet attacks
-better rez options.

Although I think making pet buffs party buffs is unnecessary, and it certainly isn't a rangers' role

As for the damage equation, the trick is keeping it balanced at lower levels.

overall, most definitly /signed with an added HOLY SHEET ANET PLEASE LOOK AT THIS DUDES THREAD

Fay Vert · Apr 11, 2009, 11:02 PM // 23:02

Nice ideas for PvE, but I can see most would make PvP way overpowered.

Skill shutdown on pet death is somethign that should be looked at, I think once you have a certain level BM, you shouldn't suffer any, but maybe suffer more for low BM levels.

There is no way that it is even remotely difficult to add rez to charm, there are many skills that do several things conditionally. Again, this would make PvP too powerful by freeing up a skill slot, but Rez in PvE is long overdue.

And bring back corpses for pets too, that was a really pants and lazy nerf. If the skill shutdown for pet death is altered as I suggest above, it would solve the problem of cheap pet abuse.

Chthon · Apr 12, 2009, 12:09 AM // 00:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fay Vert

Nice ideas for PvE, but I can see most would make PvP way overpowered.

I was under the impression that the control issues made pets a total non-starter for serious PvP. If you really think that some of these changes would make pet users too strong in serious PvP (I don't care about RA/TA/AB - those are hopelessly unbalanced anyway), then please offer some revisions to improve pets without making them too strong in PvP.

Quote:

Skill shutdown on pet death is somethign that should be looked at, I think once you have a certain level BM, you shouldn't suffer any, but maybe suffer more for low BM levels.

Fair enough.

Quote:

And bring back corpses for pets too, that was a really pants and lazy nerf. If the skill shutdown for pet death is altered as I suggest above, it would solve the problem of cheap pet abuse.

I agree. It was a bad nerf and should be reverted.

Reverend Dr · Apr 12, 2009, 03:06 AM // 03:06

The problem with pets. There are now two things instead of one; yourself and your pet instead of just yourself.

For the purposes of PvP balance simply you + your pet cannot be stronger than a bar without a pet (I'm aware that 'strong' is very subjective and also subject to team builds, but it should suffice).

This means that your individual performance must suffer if you bring a pet. Of course with the same capabilities spread across two instead of one and this creating more pressure on backlines since there is a new body to prot/heal it should be no surprise that pets are just rarely used.

While an argument could be made that this situation would justify a person + a pet bring stronger than just the person, that is a very delicate place for balance and with so many other concerns in balancing it would be an additional confound that is verymuch unneeded.

Ratson Itamar · Apr 12, 2009, 03:09 AM // 03:09

Way overpowered, you basically want a warrior controlling (like a psychic not a bow) weapon from a distance while also buffing his party and using a secondary profession with a lot of points invested...

Warriors are in the front of the battle taking the most risk and damage (and the initial brunt in PvE and AB), moreover hammer warriors sacrifice their shields while being in the fronts (I can't stress enough how much that makes a world of a difference).

Even without a secondary profession to rely (heavily) on, rangers have a very high self healing and protecting skills, comparing them to warriors or even paragons is a big mistake or (hopefully not your intention) misleading.

Beastmasters also have another advantage, making buffing their beast skills very dangerous, the pets attacks and not them. In case Anet decides to buff beastmasters (a thing that I'm all for as it will increase the diversity in GW, PvP and PvE alike) they open a very risky window. The enemy can't know which pet is owned by which beastmaster, it makes them utterly unpredictable. Don't take that lightly.

Adding another weapon, as you mentioned yourself, the pet is a weapon by it's own right, will make beastmasters more than twice (2 weapons on 1 player can be synced for spikes, thus increasing the potential damage more than mere *2) as powerful.

smilingscar · Apr 12, 2009, 03:24 AM // 03:24

Here's my thoughts on your points:

Definitely. Pet death is one of the most prohibitive parts of bringing a pet (and the only reason Heal as One is/way godly).
I don't know if I agree that pet damage is weak. It's better than a minions or spirits, and a much better source of bonus damage than any preparation. I think the same damage mechanics with better skills would suffice.
This might actually make Rangers useful for high-level pve. I support it 100%.
And definite yes. I think we have more good skills than you give us credit for though, ok maybe only two: [[predator's pounce] and [[scavenger strike].
No. You can spread yourself to 14 marks, 9 exp, and 11 beast, and that should be enough. A beast mastery weapon just says to me that you want something for free. And as a general rule, primary weapon mastery attributes and buffing/support attributes should be separate.

Suggestions:

Rather than a Beast mastery weapon, how about a [[master of magic] for rangers? Ex. "Practised stance: Elite Stance. For 5...25...30 seconds, all your other ranger attributes are set at 12 and you activate ranger skills 25% faster."
If they can't give us a new pet rez, I've been thinking that an elite or pve-only skill that summoned a pet (or even two) for a short time would be awesome for meeting pet requirements. Something like ebon vanguard assassin support but for pets. "5e, 20r. Elite skill. You call forth 1...1...2 level 1...18...20 Beasts of Melandru who shadow step to your target and last for 30 seconds. These beasts count as pets for this duration and do not leave a corpse."

gameshoes3003 · Apr 12, 2009, 04:37 AM // 04:37

I can agree with these suggestions for PvE which it appears you're shooting for.
But in PvP this would be unfavorable.
But that's why there's (PvP) skills right?

Ratson Itamar · Apr 12, 2009, 04:42 AM // 04:42

Wrong, there's PvP skill versions which is more than enough, we don't need an entire attribute and game mechanics split as well.

Axel Zinfandel · Apr 12, 2009, 06:14 AM // 06:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by smilingscar

[*]Rather than a Beast mastery weapon, how about a [[master of magic] for rangers? Ex. "Practised stance: Elite Stance. For 5...25...30 seconds, all your other ranger attributes are set at 12 and you activate ranger skills 25% faster."

No, no and no. That would be so incredibly overpowered for rangers it's not even funny. MoM works for eles because there is little that is overpowered about multi-elemental builds. having all ranger attributes at 12 AND having more attributes for secondary lines it absurd.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ratson Itamar

Wrong, there's PvP skill versions which is more than enough, we don't need an entire attribute and game mechanics split as well.

Agreed, but there is no reason they can't work with the mechanics they have.

Charm Animal: 10 en 10 ct 1 rc
"Charm target animal. Once charmed, your animal companion will travel with you whenever you have Charm Animal equipped. If you already have a pet, this skill has a cast time of 1 second and heals your pet for 20...87...104. If your companion is dead, it is resurrected with 10...48...58% Health. "

If that were the case, comfort animal must change. To what, I would not know.

There is ALSO the option of adding "your animal companion will travel with you whenever you have Comfort Animal equipped" to comfort animal.", which might be easier. This would leave Charm animal strictly for taming pets, and would still get use, but as more of a passive thing.

Everything ELSE is strictly optional, but better pet attacks would nonetheless make beast mastery more viable in PvE as well, as well as better AI.

As Reverend stated, there can't be TOO much buffing to BM rangers, because they have to be kept as one "single power". As it is now in PvE however, Pets suck unless you take a full skill bar for BM, which in itself sucks because then your character is essentially worthless.

In it's current state, BM will never see any serious use in PvE, so something needs to be done.

Ratson Itamar · Apr 12, 2009, 08:08 AM // 08:08

The mechanic I was referring to was the suggested team buffs surrounding the pet when the corresponding skill is activated, this is as far of being a ranger as possible, what else they have fire spells?

I think that combining the skills is a great idea, both of your ideas Axel make perfect sense to me. I recommend that if Anet does decide to empower beastmasters then they should take it slowly, buff one aspect and only then if it's still necessary buff another.

Ferminator · Apr 12, 2009, 08:34 AM // 08:34

Why not have another drop option like the 'Add a Hero' in the party panel that says 'Add a Pet' to take a pet into the explorable area? That would eradicate the need to take charm animal to have your pet and you would just need to bring a pet res. ie. [skill]comfort animal[/skill].

Ratson Itamar · Apr 12, 2009, 09:04 AM // 09:04

hmmm a nice but flawed idea, I imagine the poor monks trying to cope with 6 other party members with 6 pets :S. Maybe if the pets were added to the ally panel...that would be sweet. Either way, it's all the same to me as long as they remove the need to carry Charm Animal.

zwei2stein · Apr 12, 2009, 12:22 PM // 12:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Discuss, please.

1) That kind of Compression is deemed elite-worthy, see [Heal As One]. As such, it is probably bad idea to add it to common skills. PvE only, maybe...

Making res skills be able to target pet is nice idea, but it would again be quite powerfull and require some tuning. For example, allow people to use all res skills on pets, but also add 5 seccond global cooldown to user (purely to make it okay-ish in PvE and hard choice in PvP)

I would not mind slight comfort buff, just make it remove one condition from pet, and it will be insanelly better than what we have.

2) Damage equation is fine. No point in making un-attributed pets stronger. Someone who wants to use pet related skills will have to invest anyway and there is not really point in allowing people to get good benefits for no investment at all. They already get physical damage generator (abuse!) and warm body with 80al and 600 hp.

Hybridization should be compromise, and it can work - see thumpers/pack hunters.

3) That looks ... imba.

It is unremovable except killing pet or owner. Those buffs are long lasting Pet still gets buffed quite insanely and is hard to get down. AOE effect would have to be quite weak. Durations/recharges would have to get nerf. Effect on pet too. Eww.

If you want something, make effect scale with pet amount: "Calls" affect all friendly pets within earshot.

That would allow multiple beastmasters cooperate on buffing pets, and would encourage more pet heavy builds as benefit would scale with amount of pets. While not buffing party members / minions (!!) or spirits (!!!).

Also, don't kind yourself about possible skill related. People would either abuse [Strike as One] or simply play "always heel" or "always in front" and just bash shouts as they recharge.

I will give you alternative content for "Party Buffs" secontion:

"Allow current party buffs also affect pets".

That means orders/aegises/chants/whatever. Why be bitch if you can make bitch work for you

4) "interrupt" pet attacks would benefit from apropriate cast times (2.4 seccond cast interrupt ... yeah, right)

Ferocious can scale adrenaline, 4 strikes at max BM would be nice.

However, if you want beat SY (kinda pointless with bow-using SYs, but meh), repurporse one of less fortunate beastmastery skills to :

for 120 seconds, whenever your pet hits with attack, you gain one strike of adrenaline. If your pet dies while under this effect, you get 1 ... 7 ... 8 strikes of adrenaline

Awesome adrenaline boost, instant SY if you loose pet to make up for loss.

Other buffs ... not point. for pet user, multi-hit is the pet. it allows him to strike twice pretty much every other attack.

5) Umm, no. for BM, pet is the weapon. If you want seccond, compromise and invest to seccond att line. Again pack hunters or whatever.

---

If you wan't pets shine again, just make their corpses exploitable again.