Guild Wars 2

I want to make it clear up-front that I have no dog in this debate. I’m neither terribly bothered by the Ranger as it stands right now, nor entrenched in the “must have pet” camp. Although I mained a Ranger for quite some time, I main an Engi now, so it’s not a big a deal for me. I throw out the following questions/hypotheticals only for the purpose of seeing the suggestions and to induce a debate that might be constructive to the Devs.

So, Okay folks, let’s pretend …

Lets pretend that Anet does what many here in the forums have suggested, and allow Rangers a perma-stow pet option in exchange for more dps. If so, wouldn’t they open a HUGE can of worms by doing so?

How much dps by percentage? Jaguar/Hawk dps, or Bear/Moa dps?

How about a flat number regardless of pet? Okay, what if it’s 10%; won’t there be an endless hue and cry demanding more? How about 40% more dps, I’ve seen people claim this is the proper amount; would that not be OP? Imagine a 40% dps increase to the LB 1 or Axe 5, or …. how would that pan out?

And what about dungeons after this change? Despite the exaggerated claims of auto-kicked for being Ranger, there is some substance to the claim. However, if you think there is a lot of auto-kick Ranger going on now, just imagine a casual trying to join a pug WITH a pet, after the perma-stow pet option is introduced. Ah, but, “so what” you might say; well believe it or not, I’m willing to wager a HUGE number of non-forum posters that rolled Ranger did so primarily because they wanted a pet. Of course you can shrug it all off by saying, “hey let them join a guild that does dungeons and does not mind pets” … okie dokie, but that stock answer to everything doesn’t always fly in reality.

And once introduced, would it not require a massive overhaul of the entire Ranger trait tree? Or am I supposed to believe, that once introduced, and the X% of increased dps is added, there won’t be an endless forum QQ (as loud and as intense as the current one about pets) demanding new skills, utilities and elite skills for those of us that have gone “petless”?

I throw all the negatives out there just to see if someone can address these in a rational manner that actually makes this option possible, without requiring Anet to completely reinvent the wheel in regards to Rangers. And can it be done without the “pet” Rangers being turned into total dungeon/hard encounter pariahs (but they are already, you say; I call BS to anyone with that over-the-top claim, but they are little bit, that I know).

Just throwing this out there to see what happens …. So okay ladies and gentlemen, opine and wax eloquent – lol.

PS: And please, PLEASE try and remember that Anet must take into account the average player, and the average skill set … not just the tiny percentage of people that are WvW solo/small-group roamers and the PvP folks.

totally agree..
Perma stow aint an option..
Ppl saying that 40% is transfered to our pets is untrue..

But still the current design is bad..And they said that it was worst a few patches before so i dont see a fix in the near future.Anet must make something drastic with pets, must find an easy and fast solution so pets wont feel a burden..

They definetly would infact open a can of worms with this change, which is why they won’t do it. There are many abilities and even sets of abilities which need their cans to be opened and cleaned up but a look at their balancing priority over the past year tells me they simply will never do that.
It’s too much effort, enough people keep playing the game and their developers probably have tight schedules for the following 6 months since release with living story and content patches anyway.

That might be even be the right commercial decision so we can’t blame them, but it def sucks to see tons of pentional purposly discarded.

Dardamaniac.1295:

totally agree..
Perma stow aint an option..
Ppl saying that 40% is transfered to our pets is untrue..

But still the current design is bad..And they said that it was worst a few patches before so i dont see a fix in the near future.Anet must make something drastic with pets, must find an easy and fast solution so pets wont feel a burden..

To be honest, I really don’t believe it’s a viable option either. BUT, I could very well be wrong, and some bright mind here might show me/devs how it might be done, WITHOUT: 1. Requiring a complete overhaul of the Ranger trait tree, 2. Totally disenfranchising the “pet” Rangers, and 3. with a reasonable “formula” for how the dps increase will be determined for the “petless” Ranger.

i agree to pet behing stowable on some encounter. I dont agree however doing so should come with a major buff to dps. People refusing to run pet should still not be this rewarded for doing it so id say a bonus of +10% damage at best.

How about this …

Spirit pet toggle/option.

When the toggle is not activated, the pet remains just as it is now, and continues to draw aggro and provide a “meat shield” of sorts to players. And the AI continues to control all pet abilities except F2.

But when the toggle is activated, the pet becomes an invulnerable non-aggro “spirit-pet”.

1. The pets basic attack dps in converted into a flat dps increase to the Ranger’s weapon skill 1, (With each pet family having its own dps conversion formula for what that increase will be).

2. The pets 3 and 4 abilities are now active abilities controlled by the player, and with their own F3 to F4 slots. (when the toggle is not activated, the F3 and F4 skill slots are blank).

3. Unlike non-spirit pets, spirit pets, once summoned (toggled), are up 30 secs, and then go on a 15 sec cooldown before you can re-summon them. The idea being to create a trade off for the advantages (invulnerable/non-aggro) of spirit-pets over non-spirit pets.

4. Unlike regular pets, once toggled to spirit pet mode, you can NOT switch pets, and this function is disabled until the spirit pet goes on cool-down..

I’m sure there’s a dozen problems with this idea, but I’m just throwing this out there as a starting point for discussion. What I do like about this idea is that it does NOT require a complete overhaul of the current Ranger trait tree, and the Beastmaster trait line is still relevant for both regular pets and spirit pets.

Personally I do not think increasing the Ranger’s damage as compensation due to not having a pet is feasible. I do however think that in-combat stowing would go a long way to fix many issues with the Ranger. For example; being able to pick just the right time in a WvW zerg battle to bring out your pet instead of having it killed on sight would promote skillful play.

Up until now though, it is all just wishful thinking. In-combat stowing would act merely as compensation for poor mechanics rather than a straight up “fix” to the Ranger. Needless to say some compensation would be in order by now…

You can perma-stow your pet.

Enter a tonic form while your pet is stowed when you are out of combat. During that tonic form, enter combat. Then, exit your tonic.

It kind of sucks that ANet can’t get pets right for rangers. As a result of this, many of their traits having to do with pets make many builds quite underwhelming.

I’m on the fence. I don’t want to remove the pet because you lose a ton of utility that ANet probably wouldn’t find a way to correctly return to the Ranger. I’m also not that thrilled with the prospect of additional damage being given to the class because it would still just be passive auto-attack damage because ANet has yet to give the class any real AE or burst.

On the flip side, the pet hasn’t worked properly since launch. ANet has said quite clearly the problem isn’t on their radar and won’t be fixed anytime soon. If they aren’t able/willing to fix the pet and make it a benefit to the class instead of a handicap, then a passive dps increase would be fine.

Now as for that 40% number being thrown around, please keep in mind that number is variable depending on which skills are used. If you look at the actual skill formulas used for Rangers you’ll find their coefficients range from 10-40% lower than every other class’ skill. This is where that 30% increase would be seen.

As it stands now though? Simply increasing the weapon coefficients by 30% isn’t enough to offset the dps the pet does bring, the utility it provides, and the fact that the class as a whole isn’t given the tools most other DPS classes take for granted.

Lose lose all around and ANet has shown repeatedly they simply don’t care.

I’ve always felt that there should be an option to stowing pets, like in GW1- You can have a beast master build (which involves using pets thus adding traits to that line of beast mastery won’t make you to "OP’ because it takes away from another trait line) And builds that don’t involve pets would be just as fine- there would be no buff or nerf because you want your pet out or you don’t want your pet out.

The 30-40% number exists on the basis of the combination of both lower skill coefficients and the loss of utility. As it stands, there ARE builds which allow for rangers to maximize their potential without using a pet, and often these come at the cost of a lot of “desirable” or “required” skills. I personally play a signet/ power/crit longbow ranger, and find the damage I deal quite lackluster. For a 3 minute cooldown cycle, I can secure one kill, and even then, I find my pet dealing an upwards of 40% or more (I use a raven) of the inflicted damage I deal. I recently had an instance where I comboed for 14k damage, and my pet swooped in for the double attack dealing 11k-11k. The fact I only did 2/5 of the damage from a given combo on a 3 minute cooldown building almost exclusively to avoid utilizing a pet shows a lot about just how significant the pet is on overall performance.

Seeing as that combo took the entire QZ duration to gt off, I don’t see a reason why increasing the figure to around 20k would be an issue. The intent is to sacrifice the utility for DPS. It even makes sense flavor-wise, as a ranger should be more careful as to what he shoots so that he does not kill his own pet. Taking the pet out of the equation would get rid of the 2v1 utility but allow him to be more relentless in the assault.

That, and rapid shot needs to be changed to deal more damage than the auto-attack sequence with longbow.