Just about all rangers rolling melee pets suffer a drastic dps reduction in combat vs. moving targets that no other class really sees due to the nature of how melee pets launch their attacks (from the moment the maximum range is reached) and an inability to close distances. While PVE players won’t see much issue with this, skilled opponents in WvW and SPvP as well are always mobile targets. Unlike many mobs, players actually move and attack simultaneously. If you think about it, all characters that have a melee build have multiple methods of closing distances to fleeing and kiting targets very quickly to deal with such movements. Ie. Ranger’s have the pounce on number 1 sword and swoop on greatsword 3. Thieves have heartseeker, warrior’s have various charge and hit skills. But the ranger’s melee pets despite needing the same basic utilities to hit their opponents do not have them and lagg behind in that. (Which is in addition already to the limitations of AI.) It’s not uncommon to see even the fastest auto attack melee pets getting a hit ratio as low as one in twenty attacks against very mobile players.
I think it’s crucial for melee pets on rangers to be treated no differently than players. They must have a method to gap the distance to their opponents and it must be frequent enough to make their attacks less prone to miss to mere sidesteps. You cannot do a job without the right tools and AIs are no different from players in that matter. I’m all for the pet suffering just as a player to an AoE chill pulse and what not, but currently no single melee pet has the amount of distance closing skills they need to contribute to ranger damage and equal out the difference to which the ranger’s natural output is lowered to accommodate for the pet to begin with. Gapping the distance for the pet is not something the ranger himself can do, and frankly no amount of cripple, chill and stun even on a melee ranger can totally eliminate this problem.
So, IMO the most basic solution to this problem is to make all melee range pets’ default/auto attack have a pounce/lunge effect much like the ranger’s sword number 1 pounce. Alternatively if you feel that closes distances too quickly you could add a fifth skill to all the melee pets to equate to this with maybe a five second cooldown tops. (Believe me since pets can’t accommodate for a target’s trajectory well due to having to stop for a brief moment to attack they really need this). Due to potential problems with this in dungeons however, I suggest enabling this as an add-on skill the ranger can control, like an f-5. Let us shift click such a thing to have it enabled for the pet so that we can enable it or disable it accordingly. When enabled, the pet’s auto attack gains the pounce/lunge added in to it, when disabled it’s just a plain auto-attack. I understand their could be some risk for unprepared players in PvE shooting their pet like a rocket into a powerful AoE. But whatever the case, I believe melee pets really, really do need this utility to truly synergize with the ranger.
In advance in case I do somehow perk Anet’s interest on this suggestion, I want to add: such things must be added as a PET SKILL if it is added at all. Do not make such a basic mechanic something we would have to in someway trait for because there is simply no wiggle room in most decent ranger builds to put an extra 5-10 in beast mastery just to make melee pets work on the fundamental level that they should by default.