Guild Wars 2

NO! Do not delete the pet! (though I fully understand your frustration, I have been main ranger since beta).

They (Anet) have to fix the pet! The fun aspect of being a ranger is indeed the symbiosis with the pet. Unfortunately, Anet prioritize 2-week living story so much, that no crew is left for fixing the poor pet design.

Maybe when the living story groups are burned out, as also the players will at certain time, Anet goes back to fixing the core mechanics of the game eg. ranger pet!

Zenith.7301:

From the encounter design it’s obvious with all the lethal one shot aoe fields that I’m going to have to do everything on my ranger with the pet dead most of the time.

It’s not amusing when your class mechanic is punished by the encounter design so consistently.

Fellow ranger here with all Gauntlet achievements except one. Agree that in some fights (Especially Liadra fight) that pet is useless, but in others it’s the best. It all seems doable though.

My ranger used to be my “main” and my first character from the first BWE (I even played a pet ranger in GW1) but after the latest shortbow nerf I started playing my other classes more often. I have to say I am happier in the game these days. The ranger class is fun and I love having a pet, but there is so much content where it’s either a hindrance or a dead weight.

Getting maximum efficiency from your class without that nagging frustration of a dead pet is a nice break from the class. I find it hard to play the ranger now, they are a lot of work to reach the same level as other classes (pet micro, sword micro, spirit micro). Whenever you play content on another class, it’s really nice not having to worry about what’s going to massacre your pet this time.

Try playing an MM necro

At least necros have the option of running something else (plus minion death is expected). Ranger pet deaths are a considerable DPS loss and you have no other options.

I cannot lose my pet! They just need to work on them, that’s all.

This is why I gave up on trying to run a minion master around the time of Flame & Frost. Just AoE spamming boss after AoE spamming boss. I feel for all you rangers out there who are stuck with a nugget or steak because of this.

They really need to revamp bosses so that AoEs become more of a rarity.

Fungalfoot.7213:

This is why I gave up on trying to run a minion master around the time of Flame & Frost. Just AoE spamming boss after AoE spamming boss. I feel for all you rangers out there who are stuck with a nugget or steak because of this.

They really need to revamp bosses so that AoEs become more of a rarity.

Doesn’t matter if they are a rarity. If the pet gets 1-shot it goes on a 50 sec cd death cooldown.

Not every issue has to be dealt with so black and white. If something doesnt work, fix it, dont remove it.

Saelune.5316:

Not every issue has to be dealt with so black and white. If something doesnt work, fix it, dont remove it.

This. Ranger pets have never been perfect but they really need to fix them at some point. It’s getting old.

Anet doesn’t care about Ranger people

It’s a shame really. I quit playing my ranger months ago and recently salvaged all his equipment for money to work towards a legendary for my guardian. Feels nice not having a pet drag me down all time time but I do miss having my cool little companions around at times…

I agree. I have decent solutions such as:

1. Make AoE damage against pets much lower in PvE, and slightly lower in PvP.

2. Give pets a new set of skills while in “passive” like a personal buff to the ranger in the forms of damage, protection, precision, etc. etc. in order to still be effective while keeping them next to you and out of combat to avoid OHKO AoE’s.

3. Have pets “evade” when you dodge roll, or add the skill to the pet bar.

There are of course many more. Not sure why the devs are so content right now with the sate Ranger pets are in. They are in need to a revamp….soon.

They aren’t entirely useless. I used Siamoth to get a ectoplasm right before the fight and, when he died, kept him dead until I had to switch to my brown bear for a condition removal.

So they were useful…kinda?

Bleh. Who am I kidding? It was depressing to see my pet constantly die and limp around not being able to help q-q

Vaxx.3178:

I agree. I have decent solutions such as:

1. Make AoE damage against pets much lower in PvE, and slightly lower in PvP.

2. Give pets a new set of skills while in “passive” like a personal buff to the ranger in the forms of damage, protection, precision, etc. etc. in order to still be effective while keeping them next to you and out of combat to avoid OHKO AoE’s.

3. Have pets “evade” when you dodge roll, or add the skill to the pet bar.

There are of course many more. Not sure why the devs are so content right now with the sate Ranger pets are in. They are in need to a revamp….soon.

@ #2. Or if a pet is on “Avoid combat” their f2 abilities should have a 25-50% shorter cd

Again this a mistake GW2 devs should of never made to begin with because it has been seen in other games prior to GW2, and has been corrected. WoW for example your pets take a massive reduction from AoE dmg as passive that is automatic. This made them absolutely 100% useful for raids. They also were immune to certain bosses skills depending on the boss so pretty much unless the boss melees your pet, its good as gold.

They won’t bother. I already gave a suggestion, but it’s clear rangers aren’t getting better anytime soon.

As someone who casually enjoys leveling his alt sylvari ranger with heavy influence/RP based on Arthurian history, my devourer and spider rarely die… but i didnt take him into really heavy aoe situations so its probably moot, one thing i did have to learn early on (with the fern hound) is swapping pets is vital.

Atlas.9704:

I cannot lose my pet! They just need to work on them, that’s all.

What, the very same juvenile pet that I have? …and that everyone else has? Can’t even remember my pet’s name… why so attached?

Pets are pretty useful for detonating mines against the deadeye guy.

I don’t want my pet removed (although if every fight ends up like Liadri’s they may as well just kittening remove my pet and give me a spirit of him because there’s no way he’s kittening alive right now…) because he’s useful… usually…. They need to make them immune to one shot mechanics though, every aoe? No, that’d be silly, you can get them out of most AoE’s but one shot mechanics killing the pet is kittening stupid.

Or for kittens sakes give us a way to REZ OUR PETS without putting it on a 60s CD pre trait. Just because a bunch of idiot rangers QQed that they had a dead pet they could rez walking around doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be rez able, just tie it to the F3 or F2 or F1 skills while it’s dead because Melandru knows we’re not using those kittening buttons while he’s limping around…

ilr.9675:

Anet doesn’t care about Ranger people

Whatever you say Kanye.

If they won’t improve the pet mechanic then give rangers a trait to keep them stowed, while providing a buff.

Kasei.8726:

ilr.9675:

Anet doesn’t care about Ranger people

Whatever you say Kanye.

If they won’t improve the pet mechanic then give rangers a trait to keep them stowed, while providing a buff.

Something like this.

As it stands, “challenge” comes into the game as enviornmental hazards.
(Such as the Frizz boss in the aetherblade dungeon). With these challenges, rangers have to work almost twice as hard as other professions, no matter what build the ranger takes with him. Something has to change. Many things have to change.

Even calling your pet back out of aoe functions as if the pet is effectively dead.

The pet is 30-40% of your damage. Any moment he’s not attacking while you are attacking you are losing that huge chunk of damage.

You’re having to nerf your damage due to the nature of the encounter whereas a guardian or warrior would just dodge or pop aegis and continue doing damage.

In the pavillion the pet is dead under a second. There is so much aoe and the pets ai is so bad that it has become pretty useless.

aspirine.6852:

In the pavillion the pet is dead under a second. There is so much aoe and the pets ai is so bad that it has become pretty useless.

Even using a drake with its whopping hp and toughness it dies to several of the bosses in 3 seconds flat.

And if you use a bear you might as well bring no pet considering the bear does less damage than a non-condi spec burning tick (its auto is seriously like 400-500 damage with minimal crit chance, it’s just terrible like the moa).

Pure Heart.1456:

Atlas.9704:

I cannot lose my pet! They just need to work on them, that’s all.

What, the very same juvenile pet that I have? …and that everyone else has? Can’t even remember my pet’s name… why so attached?

Obviously you didn’t catch the quote reference, but whatever I’ll still answer.
I like having pets in this game because I liked collecting and naming my pets in GW1 for my character there.
I’m all for the ability to stow them away and they not show up unless you will it, but I don’t want to absolutely lose the ability to have pets in the first place.

Just because you can’t remember yours doesn’t mean everyone else is apathetic like that.

That last Gauntlet fight is just silly, I pop in my pet is dead 3 seconds in..

Why have a Ranger pet at all

Meriem.3504:

WoW for example your pets take a massive reduction from AoE dmg as passive that is automatic.

Just how long did it take for them to get around to that? Wasn’t it years?

I was a feral druid. I was mistaken for being a hunter’s pet 24/7.

ilr.9675:

Anet doesn’t care about Ranger people

Yeah. I am so UNEXCITED about my GS 2 skill getting turned into a crappy 3 stack vulnerability rather then bleed. Oh joy. 2 seconds of +%3 damage. so I can hit it two or three times for an extra smidgen of damage. Useful exchange that. :s

Xsorus.2507:

That last Gauntlet fight is just silly, I pop in my pet is dead 3 seconds in..

Why have a Ranger pet at all

Mine came in handy for the pet heals. Poor boss whaling on me and I’m back on my feet to stomp him/her/it anyway.

how bout anet stops making everything 1 shot people

massive damage or condition stacks= acceptable

instant death = cheapness, why you may ask , simple when you have instant loss mechanics implemented they will not only punish players but also will have the chance of oh i dunno bugging and then giving unfair advantages to the npcs

Sleel.8365:

Xsorus.2507:

That last Gauntlet fight is just silly, I pop in my pet is dead 3 seconds in..

Why have a Ranger pet at all

Mine came in handy for the pet heals. Poor boss whaling on me and I’m back on my feet to stomp him/her/it anyway.

He’s talking about the last boss fight, there’s literally a 0% chance you’ll be able to have a pet heal on the last boss….

Rezzet.3614:

how bout anet stops making everything 1 shot people

massive damage or condition stacks= acceptable

instant death = cheapness, why you may ask , simple when you have instant loss mechanics implemented they will not only punish players but also will have the chance of oh i dunno bugging and then giving unfair advantages to the npcs

Massive damage and/or massive condition stacks can both mean slightly slower instant death

AN only knows two answers to the question of “How do we make X challenging?”

1. It’s going to one-shot you.
2. It’s a jumping puzzle.

Feranor.2053:

AN only knows two answers to the question of “How do we make X challenging?”

1. It’s going to one-shot you.
2. It’s a jumping puzzle.

This does about sum things up.

I’ve gotten to the point where I simply ignore my pet when fighting champions. Two one-shot-gimmicks and the pets are down long enough that I have better things to concentrate on than their cool-down timer. Especially since I’m now fighting with a chunk of my dps missing.

I love the ranger/pet combo as a game character, but the fighting gimmicks *cough*er.. I mean “challenges” pretty much negate the use of a pet.

Pets are great for 1v1, or even 1v3 or so, so long as you are up against standard mobs and maybe a vet or two. They divide aggro, and last long enough that you can just pull your other pet out when needed, but since pets aren’t smart enough to dodge one-shotting attacks, it’s pointless to focus on what they are doing in a boss fight.

Even if you did the previous fight and were kiting, my pet would be alive but would fail to hit a moving mob most of the time even with speed signet on.

Pets can’t keep up with targets at all because they auto-root when attacking.

Even if you could keep the pet alive through micro, they offer very little of value as a mechanic. Most of the time it’s the occasional blast finisher or boon or CC, a lot of which is RNG. The extra effort put into the pet rarely makes you better as a class, it just keeps the pet alive (if that). Extra effort put into a mesmer or guardian can change fights (try Feedback on Kholer, Malrona, Lupicus, Searing Effigy etc). Even if there was a micro option to keep pets alive in dungeons, you’re working really for little reward. The pet mechanic is just bad in this game.

To be honest, I couldn’t agree more. Pets are a hindrance, no matter how you beat around the bush.
They die faster than you can pick your nose, and calling them back is useless when you’re ALREADY in melee.
Their F2 skills take too long (and have huge kitten CDs) and have minimal effects.
Pets die too fast.
Pets don’t scale with your gear.
Pets are dead most of the time.
The pet swap cooldown is way too long.
Pets need more survivability.
The “attack my target” feature is often useless.

I know this is related to the new LS, but you can’t tell me those still don’t apply here.
I only play my ranger because it’s… visually appealing (IYKWIM), but I’m tempted to just delete it because I’ve given up hope on having it balanced.

I’m not sure there is a way to “fix” pets so they can survive these high end boss fights AND not be over-powered at other times.

Suggestions:
Some sort of mechanic to limit pet damage to X% at once (so they can survive at least a few 1 hit kill shots).
Some auto-dodge mechanic to avoid X number of high damage attacks per time frame (per above but totally avoid the damage).
Some DPS (or general boon / power) increasing mechanic that kicks in when both pets are dead (temporary?). This would maintain the pet mechanic but allow for some limited power increase when the pet weapon gets removed.

Snack.9315:

To be honest, I couldn’t agree more. Pets are a hindrance, no matter how you beat around the bush.
They die faster than you can pick your nose, and calling them back is useless when you’re ALREADY in melee.
Their F2 skills take too long (and have huge kitten CDs) and have minimal effects.
Pets die too fast.
Pets don’t scale with your gear.
Pets are dead most of the time.
The pet swap cooldown is way too long.
Pets need more survivability.
The “attack my target” feature is often useless.

I know this is related to the new LS, but you can’t tell me those still don’t apply here.
I only play my ranger because it’s… visually appealing (IYKWIM), but I’m tempted to just delete it because I’ve given up hope on having it balanced.

Even though I am not happy with the way rangers are currently, I have to disagree in regards to the damage issue, somewhat.

While it is anything but foolproof, I use Orr as a test bed whenever I make changes.
Currently my ranger is pow/pre/crit (5 of 6 are rare, only 1 exotic), with 6 Superior Rune of the Ranger. I generally cruise with a pow/prec/mf exotic longbow, and I use birds (raven/snow-owl) as pets. I also use imob/cripple traps.
With my current setup, there aren’t very many standard mobs (risen nobles excepted) that can get within melee range long enough to hit me. The exception there is when the mobs magically ignore knockback and just instantly are back where they started (a known bug). Even with Risen Nobles before the lowering of the damage their marks do, I was able to keep them back long enough to take them out.
The point? My point is that during my time in playing around with this, I have enough time to pay attention to how my pet is acting, and I’ve found that birds, at least, do some substantial damage. Without the right kind of pet, I’d need to swap to my melee weapon probably 80% of the time, even though it would be for only a couple seconds, but even with full aggro on me, as often happens, the birds are helping a LOT with dps.
This is part of my complaint about their lack of defense. I’ve tried various pets for boss fights, but for me it’s come down to which pet will hold aggro the longest in order for others to be mobile with their attacks.
Soon as the boss one-shots “PET DOWN!” and it’s time to hit F4 and hope I’ve not done so in the previous half minute.
Using a heavy defense pet takes away from the dps, which is an understandable exchange, but if you see me using a bird in a boss fight, it’s because I figure to get as much damage in before they get one-shotted like the rest.
As for cooldowns, the attacks (F2) need to be shorter recharge and much faster on action.
The swap cooldown could stay the same if the pets were made more survivable.

Personally, I’d like to see a trait-line specifically for pets (part of the pet window), and the ability to specialize in specific pet types (for me, I’d specialize in birds). This would add advantage in many locations, but would allow Anet to also create dungeon bosses that are a bane to certain pet types, thus forcing the ranger to make some decisions on what to use, and what to specialize in, just like some bosses are better fought with ranged, vs. melee.

What if pets had a variable death-cooldown based on how they died?
i.e say 10 seconds faster if it got oneshot, 5 if twoshot, normal otherwise?
Possibly also related to if you swap out the ‘dead’ pet or not? (reses faster if it stays active)

I’m putting my agreement here as well. Equally challenging my kitten .

Miflett.3472:

I’m putting my agreement here as well. Equally challenging my kitten .

Oh equally challenging isn’t even up for debate, just look at the kittening warrior video where he drops her in like 10s after her invuln drops off, it’s ridiculous. Here it is btw…

I dunno. I think being used to pet assistance can spoil you when it comes to these types of fights. The thing is Anet actually bolstered pet defense across the board, even if they nerfed some dps. A lot of Ranger attacks are simple in execution so that you can micro well with the pet. That said, queen’s pavillion AOE and these new bosses do render pets useless, but if you’re banking for your pet to do a lot of work for you in these fights, then that’s where you messed up. Pets can run distraction for maybe a hit or two, and when they die (and in Queen’s Pavillion, they will) you have to rely on your own dodge skills, your own DPS and your own defensive skills. if you’re relying on a pet to pull aggro then you can’t be surprised if they die from that aggro. if you use a devourer or a forest spider, you can get long range attacks going and keep aggro on yourself if your personal DPS is high enough. I do hope, however, that they make some pets that can block, dodge or have a prone, defensive mode whether through prompt or naturally.

I’m sure this opinion is unpopular, but I do agree with one of brother Grimm’s points, Maybe one or two of the elite skills can give you an extra group of buffs when your pets are dead. Or give rangers a vengeance trait so that they become more powerful in compensation for the deaths of their pets. Or even quicker weapon switches and more finishers on each weapon. It’d be an awesome trait for situations like these. Or hell give the ranger some shield abilities that will span to or be mirrored by the pet.

Also a separate trait line for pets as Neural suggested would be amazing. One thing cool that Renic Games did in Torchlight 2 did was make special collars and tags that had different buffs and effects on them: from magic find to elemental attack properties. Dunno if Arenanet would ever go that far though.

Edit: also Sleel really hit a great point on the head. even downed pets can heal you quickly when you get downed. So even if they’re useless in the 1-shot boss fights, you have a great advantage over most other classes when you get downed.

Durzlla.6295:

Miflett.3472:

I’m putting my agreement here as well. Equally challenging my kitten .

Oh equally challenging isn’t even up for debate, just look at the kittening warrior video where he drops her in like 10s after her invuln drops off, it’s ridiculous. Here it is btw…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYAjo4ZZXLo

Instead of fear me you can also take endure pain and the visions would explode on you without damaging you as you do frenzy/100b+whirlwind and then just blow her up with axe.

Also instead of bull’s charge he can take berserker’s stance and not be afflicted with weakness while bursting her down.

Everything about that encounter favors berserker warriors and guardians.

Shiren.9532:

At least necros have the option of running something else (plus minion death is expected). Ranger pet deaths are a considerable DPS loss and you have no other options.

Yes, necros can run something else. However they lose an entire trait line and 1/3 of their skills because minions are more useless than ranger pets. Necros have the fewest viable trait points and the fewest viable skills of any class in the game.

The point is, it’s not a necro vs ranger problem. It’s a pet problem and it needs to be fixed for everyone.

My pet died instantly when a champion looked at it.

I really like the pet mechanic and the fun of playing a Ranger. But in content like this they just die too quickly. Considering the pet is the Ranger’s mechanic and one of the Ranger’s weapons, it is debilitating when it dies this much. Imagine if the weapons or mechanics of other classes could die and be unavailable like a dead pet.

As mentioned above, pets need much more AoE resistance in PvE, or else some better AI to avoid it or other telegraphed attacks.