GAME INFO

CONTRIBUTIONS
Position: Design Consultant

Genre: Hybrid Tab / Action MMORPG

Platform: PC

Initial Release Date: August 28, 2012

Expansion Release Date: February 28, 2022

Concepted Untamed elite specialization
Concepted Hammer kit and function
Supported the balance team with ongoing maintenance and bug fixing post-release

UNTAMED - ELITE SPECIALIZATION

DESCRIPTION

Untamed is an elite specialization for the ranger unlocked with the End of Dragons expansion. The untamed have learned to use the ancient magics of The Echovald Forest to create a deep, primal bond with their pets. They juggle this raw power between one another, unleashing their strength. This also allows the untamed to better control their pets, gaining command over their full range of skills.

Untamed have learned cantrip skills, channeling the power of the forest into defense and offense. They can wield hammers, heavy weapons that change their skills as the ranger or their pet Unleashes, pounding their enemies into dust. Untamed focus on damage dealing.

DESIGN GOALS

Create a ranger elite specialization with the highest skill ceiling of all the elite specializations available to the class, with the goal of it being a viable pick in high-level competitive play.
Focus on melee combat, with a bruiser playstyle.
Leverage and elevate existing mechanics to create interesting, dynamic gameplay.
Raise the skill ceiling as much as possible while keeping the skill floor as low as possible.

MY CONTRIBUTIONS

The concept was born out of design discussions I had with the lead systems designer at Arenanet back in 2018. The idea spawned from the notion that since ranger was a beginner-friendly pet class, the room for skill expression existed, but was difficult to access.

My challenge was to design a specialization with a higher skill ceiling so that rangers could shine in competitive play. Here, I suggested a specialization where rangers had full control over all 3 of their pets’ abilities. Rangers in Guild Wars 2 typically function as skirmishers, and generally stay away from the center of the action. So, I wanted to subvert this and tie it in with one of the most iconic builds from the first game in the series, Guild Wars 1, named Bunny Thumper. I suggested hammer as the new weapon to support a melee bruiser playstyle and have a callback that veteran players would appreciate.

Here were the key features I suggested:

Expand keybinds to include F5 and F6. For the two additional controllable pet skills.
- This increased the skill ceiling but also raised the skill floor as it required more keybinds to use. And, the keybinds would have to be re-bound as anything past F4 are generally difficult to reach for the average player.
- Additionally, I suggested that reworking the base pet controls to make attack and recall a flip skill on F1 could be a way to minimize the addition of extra keybinds. But, this would affect base ranger and all of its specializations as a result.
To compensate for this, players will now gain the ability to set their pet abilities to auto-cast rather than requiring manual input.
- So, for the players that want to retain the base pet controls and do not want to engage with the additional flexibility, pet skills set to auto-cast will retain the same functionality of distance-based activation that the base ranger and all other ranger elite specializations had.
Hammer should focus around repeated knockdowns, attack, and run speed increases. The weapon should support an aggressive, bruiser playstyle that gets up close and personal with their opponents.

RESULTS

Untamed is the highest skill ceiling build in the game. It is also the most mechanically intensive in order to play it at the highest levels.
It has been a staple in competitive play since release - with sufficient counterplay, yet highly effective in the right hands.
The specialization was very well-received, widely considered to be one of the best additions to the game, and a favorite among veteran players.

SUPPORT DRUID

Druid was initially concepted as a support specialization. However, it was anything else but in competitive modes. In practice, the kit leaned towards DPS and tank roles. However, I recognized the potential, and with a few changes, support druid could be a viable choice.

When looking at the build options for druid, here are the design issues I identified:

It was selfish. For a specialization that was intended to be a support, most of the sustain-related traits in the skill tree only affected the caster.
The traits incentivized offense. The specialization rewarded successfully crowd controlling, and hitting crowd controlled enemy players. But, it is unlikely for a support to go, or want to go, on the offensive.
It did not have the tools to maintain its effective range. The specialization lacked the survivability and defensive buffs necessary to survive in larger fights. Additionally, the range of its abilities were smaller than the ranges of other supports.
The tradeoff made the class mechanic weaker in the fights it wanted to be in. Several years after the specialization was release, a tradeoff was introduced that reduced druid pet stats by 20% across the board. But, pets already struggled in larger fights prior to this change. And, a dead pet disables a significant amount traits and synergies.
It did not have reliable access its support abilities. Unlike other supports, druid's support capabilities were tied to a transformation mechanic with a 20 second cooldown. Oftentimes, druids were simply unable to heal their teammates in situations where other supports would have been able to.

So, I set several design goals that better aligned with the initial vision.

Encourage selflessness.
Incentivize healing.
Give it the tools to position and take the fights it wants as a support.
Give it more convenient and reliable access to its support skills.
As a flavor goal, a healing over time theme would be interesting as all other supports in the game were frontloaded.

After communicating this to the systems lead and balance team, here were my proposed changes:

Druidic Clarity - Reduce the number of conditions (debuffs) removed from the player from 13 to 3. And, have it remove 3 conditions for nearby allies as well.
Reduce the cooldown of Celestial Avatar (the transformation form) from 20 seconds to 10 seconds.
Ancient Seeds - Change the pulsing root applied when hitting crowd controlled targets to a 1 second root on a successful crowd control.
Give sources of AoE protective boons (buffs) like stability (crowd control immunity) and protection (reduced incoming strike damage).
Remove the pet stat loss when playing as a druid.
Increase the radii of glyphs from 300 to 600 to match other supports' skills.
Flip the glyph swap effects so the player gains access to the supportive versions when they are not in Celestial Avatar, and the offensive versions when they are in Celestial Avatar.
Search and Rescue - Increase the range from 600 to 900 to match other supports' resurrect utilities.
Ancestral Grace - Add the evade back to the movement skill.

Here was the outcome:

Of these 9 changes, the first 5 in the list made it into the game exactly as proposed or in a similar form.
As a result, the playrates for support druid increased, and it became a viable option in PvP for the first time in 7 years.

MIRAGE CLOAK

Mirage was concepted as an elusive duelist who could dodge incoming attacks without rolling, and execute ambush attacks on unsuspecting enemies. In order to do so, mirages exchanged the normal dodge roll for Mirage Cloak. Mirage cloak lasted .25 seconds longer than normal dodge rolls and provided evade frames without interrupting existing casts.

Mirage cloak and its relevant traits broke the combat economy of Guild Wars 2. Here are the design issues I identified:

Reduced purity in purpose. Mirages can cast any skill entirely protected, giving them the ability to add defensive effects on any skill in their kit.
Reduced emphasis on defensive cooldowns. Mirages could enter mirage cloak while under the effects of hard crowd control (stuns, fears, floats, etc.) and when immobilized (rooted). For all other classes in the game:
1. They must avoid getting hit by the crowd control or immobilize to begin with.
2. When under these effects, they must use a stunbreak and a defensive skill to avoid the follow-up damage.
3. If they cannot, they will have to eat the damage. However, mirage cloak allowed mirages to simply dodge the follow-up without needing to burn additional resources to stay alive.
Swiss army knife. Mirage cloak also removed crowd control effects and debuffs from the mirage. So, usable at any time, it was a universal solution to any potential threat.

Mirage cloak was an incredible powerful offensive and defensive tool. The raw endurance regeneration (resource needed to dodge) and access to many additional sources of mirage cloak created oppressive DPS and tank builds that were impossible to interact with, as they could not damaged, debuffed, or crowd controlled. Their important casts could not be interrupted and they were even able to capture important map objectives while being completely invulnerable.

In 2018, I proposed several changes that would better align mirage cloak and its related traits with the core combat design of the game:

Remove the ability to capture map objectives while under the effects of mirage cloak.
Reduce the duration of mirage cloak from 1s to .75s to match all other dodge rolls.
Elusive Mind - Remove the stunbreak effect when dodge rolling.
Remove the ability to enter mirage cloak while hard crowd controlled or immobilized.

That same year, Arenanet removed the ability to capture map objectives while under the effects of mirage cloak.

In 2019, two years after mirage was released, Arenanet reduced the mirage cloak duration from 1s to .75s.

In 2020, three years after mirage was released, Arenanet removed a dodge roll from mirage. So, instead of two dodges like all other classes, they only had one. With this single change, mirage went from an oppressive powerhouse to entirely unplayable. In this patch, they also removed the stunbreak effect from elusive mind.

In the years that followed, I advocated heavily for the reintroduction of the second dodge with the last fix I proposed above.

In 2023, three years after the second dodge was removed, Arenanet reintroduced it and implemented the last change I had suggested..

The outcome:

Of the 4 changes I suggested, all 4 made it into the game exactly as proposed.
Mirage is now a healthy DPS build in the meta, its playrates increased, and it became a viable pick in tournament play.

OTHERS

Here are some additional builds, skills, and playstyles I consulted on:

Bird Knight
Decap Druid
Bunker Soulbeast
Marksmanship Modifiers
Mantra Mesmer
Swipe
Aggressive Onslaught

And many more.