Blackfang’s Demon Alliance [BfDA]
Pets and Moving Targets
They can if they’re moving faster than their target. Flesh Golem is the best at sticking to his target, due to the cripple on attacks. Of course, ranged pets/minions don’t have an issue and are reliable anyway.
They can if they’re moving faster than their target. Flesh Golem is the best at sticking to his target, due to the cripple on attacks. Of course, ranged pets/minions don’t have an issue and are reliable anyway.
Which is never, because most targets have swiftness and at equal speed the pet always staggers to launch an attack, falling behind its target.
Moreover, in the case of ranged pets their projectiles are slow and can easily be sidestepped beyond 600 range. Their projectiles are also easily bodyblocked since they cannot be made to pierce.
Pets are simply put a liability. They grant thieves a free cloak and dagger, and are useful for many classes to exploit on hit effects or keeping the ranger in combat since the pet cannot smartly dodge like the player. The pets also do not cleave except the drake’s autoattack, and that’s capped at 3 targets while most classes like elementalists, warriors, and guardians have no such cleaving limitations.
And especially in WvW and high level fractals, they’re dead weight that does pretty easily. On fractal 50 you better get used to bringing a spider for the very moment mossman’s cleave takes off half your pet’s health.
At least pets are optional for necromancer and guardian, but pet implementation in this game has been nothing short of atrocious and negligent.
Same thing applies to many mesmer clones and phantasms.
Staff clones, torch phantasms and scepter clones, you can walk away from their attacks and not get hit.
Rangers have exceptional access to cripple and pretty solid access to chill for a reason. It’s not difficult to build yourself to be able to maintain permanent cripple or chill, along with other snaring effects like Muddy Terrain and Entangle that can force your opponent to stand still. Not to mention that many of our pets have their own control effects attached to them.
So we do have the tools we need to make sure the pet is landing it’s (Apparently the s and h being too close together upsets Anet) hits somewhat reliably. They could still be improved though, I definitely agree with that.
We could use more cleaving pets. Bears and porcine pets get my vote. That way you get heavy armor pets that can be used in dungeons without crippling your DPS. Giving the devourers piercing could also be a big benefit.
I also feel pets should naturally move faster than they do as a baseline. Even a simple 10% speed increase would ensure they hit moving targets reliably, short of opponents using Swiftness which would just be counterplay to avoid the pet easier.
In my opinion, Agility Training should be innate in the profession, not a trait.
A wolf should be able to outrun a person.
Prosper
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In my opinion, Agility Training should be innate in the profession, not a trait.
A wolf should be able to outrun a person.
I agree with this. I considered bringing it up in my own post but was hesitant as it might be a bit much, but it’d do wonders to make pets more reliable damage dealers.
Besides that, it’d also let our pets keep up with us when we have +25% movement speed from runes that don’t transfer to the pet.
What’s the problem? AI shouldn’t be as intelligent at path finding as humans. I don’t know why rangers and necros think they should have access to uber AI that does all the work for them.
What’s the problem? AI shouldn’t be as intelligent at path finding as humans. I don’t know why rangers and necros think they should have access to uber AI that does all the work for them.
The problem with your line of thinking, at least for the ranger, is that we are balanced fully around having our pet actively hitting the opponent. We do less damage across all our weapons than we would otherwise to balance out a pet that, as it is now, is very difficult to land a hit with.
Anet has specifically stated that the pet is suppose to make up 30% of our damage output. That means that said AI not hitting it’s target due to poor pathfinding and continuously stopping before attacking causes us to suffer a 30% DPS drop, which is pretty vital in a PVP scenario.
Simply put, if our pet can’t reach it’s target and hit reliably we as a ranger are only 70% of a profession, where as everyone else can function at 100% at all times.
We could use more cleaving pets. Bears and porcine pets get my vote. That way you get heavy armor pets that can be used in dungeons without crippling your DPS. Giving the devourers piercing could also be a big benefit.
I definitely agree that bears should be THE go-to pet for tanky, big fight pet option (btw, 16 beastmastery for healing over time on pets is bugged, I think). Cleave is a nice idea though. I generally think the cooldown on bears 3rd skill should be decreased and the duration of the skill should be increased. It presents an option like what many people had of providing invulnerability frames to the pet. It works well with a bear pet too as they should be in the middle of all the damage.
I also feel pets should naturally move faster than they do as a baseline. Even a simple 10% speed increase would ensure they hit moving targets reliably, short of opponents using Swiftness which would just be counterplay to avoid the pet easier.
This is interesting, as I’ve thought that the pet could do for something like attack moving, but it might be considered too much as a lot of the skill to the ranger is timing a cc so that your pet can capitalize on it. The problem with your idea is that rangers have a trait that boosts movement speed of pets already.
Above all though, I think Rangers should (AT LEAST) be able to see the cooldowns on all skills on their pets so they can react accordingly.
As a comparison: When I play Visage in Dota, it would be ridiculously crippling if I didn’t know the cooldowns on Visage stoneform birds.
What’s the problem? AI shouldn’t be as intelligent at path finding as humans. I don’t know why rangers and necros think they should have access to uber AI that does all the work for them.
The problem with your line of thinking, at least for the ranger, is that we are balanced fully around having our pet actively hitting the opponent. We do less damage across all our weapons than we would otherwise to balance out a pet that, as it is now, is very difficult to land a hit with.
Anet has specifically stated that the pet is suppose to make up 30% of our damage output. That means that said AI not hitting it’s target due to poor pathfinding and continuously stopping before attacking causes us to suffer a 30% DPS drop, which is pretty vital in a PVP scenario.
Simply put, if our pet can’t reach it’s target and hit reliably we as a ranger are only 70% of a profession, where as everyone else can function at 100% at all times.
If your pets gets even kittens in during a fight then it’s served it’s purpose. The problem with improving the pathfinding and speed of the pet means that your enemies will have a pet basically auto attacking them to death. There’s very little that player can do to counter both you and the pet at the same time.
It’s not like rangers are hitting like marshmellows. Aside from the recent rapid fire buff sure, they don’t have much in the way of burst. But they have pretty some sustained damage.
I think a better solution to the problem would be to give rangers more access to skills/traits that reduce enemy player mobility. That way they’ll actually need to work for it rather than a flat out passive buff to pets.
This is interesting, as I’ve thought that the pet could do for something like attack moving, but it might be considered too much as a lot of the skill to the ranger is timing a cc so that your pet can capitalize on it. The problem with your idea is that rangers have a trait that boosts movement speed of pets already.
Above all though, I think Rangers should (AT LEAST) be able to see the cooldowns on all skills on their pets so they can react accordingly.
As a comparison: When I play Visage in Dota, it would be ridiculously crippling if I didn’t know the cooldowns on Visage stoneform birds.
Pet AI is handled by the same program used for every other NPC in the game. Unfortunately this means pets are mechanically incapable of hitting while moving. Anet would have to give them an entirely different program set up, and they aren’t willing to put in that effort. So the best way to make sure the pet can at least occasionally hit a moving target is to give it a small speed boost so it can catch up to the opponent, hit them, fall behind and have to catch up again before landing another hit. Cripple and chill will still increase the amount of times a pet can hit though, so there’d still be a role for the ranger to play.
As for that trait, unfortunately it’s in the Skirmishing line and competes with Pet Prowess. If you’re running a beastmaster ranger like I often do you kind of need both of these traits but only have the trait points for one, since you need 6 in BM and 3 in Nature Magic to maximize your pet’s damage output. You COULD get both, but then you’d be hard up on condition cleansing and have to run with Signet of Renewal, which… Literally kills your pet as it’s main form of condition cleansing.
We really need the speed boost to either be baseline or more accessible.
I have only rolled a ranger for key farming yet I agree that ranger pets, at least, should be able to hit while moving.
Pet ai bound to the mobs ai. They will never will be a real part of us. I support the old, good aspect idea. If you put away your pet you gain bonuses depending on your pet. Pets not working in large scale (everything more kitten enemy)
I think pets are the last problem what rangers have (and maybe sword root)
WSR→Piken→Deso→Piken→FSP→Deso
Just the WvW
R3200+
Just the WvW
R3200+
I know it’s the AI problem, but I’d be happy if htey could just make them follow you and go over edges… or go back to GW1 where players can’t do it either.