Rangers take a lot of flack for being underpowered or crippled. I think a substantial amount of this comes from the way their class mechanic, compared to other professions, aggressively and sometimes obnoxiously shoves its way into everything they do.
For example, I could make a minion-based necromancer, or one that focuses on marks and wells. Neither of these build options would be directed at traits to improve the Life Force mechanic, and they aren’t forced to lean on it. Yet it’s potentially useful for any necromancer, at the very least as temporary damage absorption. It doesn’t get in the way or demand my attention.
Rangers, by comparison, don’t have the same luxury in making builds. A huge amount of their skills and trait options are tied to pets, and it’s nearly impossible to make a build that’s not heavily influenced by it. You can make a pet-oriented build, just as every other class can build specifically around their unique mechanic, but the ranger forcibly has one foot in it no matter their build.
The result is a mechanic that in some ways actually siphons from the profession’s abilities. While the pet is always there to absorb or deliver damage, if you’re not built around it, your skills being half dedicated to it is like throwing some of your stats into a void. Just like any mechanic, if you don’t trait toward it at all its impact will be minimal, but the weakened pet can easily die and leave me without its passive boost. I’m left with piles of half-functional skills and no benefit to counter them.
My idea is to expand the mechanic to include a more passive, less “demanding” function: the option to stow your pets, and in their place, gain a passive boost. Similar to how the engineer and elementalist’s class mechanics functionally let them equip more skills at once, this would be like allowing the ranger to have a couple more traits equipped. You could have your pet out and fighting, or put away and buffing you. Switching would be outside of combat.
This could allow for much more build freedom by giving every animal type a different buff when stowed. Black Bear giving a chance to weaken on critical hits, as a random thought. Skills that effect both player and pet could offer a temporary boost to whatever the pet grants; Heal As One, if you have an on-critical pet boost like above, might grant temporary on-critical life siphoning.
There would be a lot of work and balancing to all this, of course, but I think it could be an effective way to allow the mechanic to benefit all rangers, instead of benefit one type and just kind of be “there” for all the others.