Guild Wars 2

Since the only threads on pets are all extremely long, I have decided to help the community and write a shorter thread helping ArenaNet to fix pets. No one wants to read a huge wall of text, so here I’ll try to be brief and concise.

ArenaNet devs, if you’re here, please read!

The following are the changes that should happen:

1. Let pet’s attack and cast F2 abilities while on the move! This is the MOST important aspect of retaining pet DPS against mobile targets. As of right now, not only do pets sometime miss, they are losing damage because they only get about 1/3rd the amounts of hits off because they have to chase the target, stop, attack and repeat.
2. Pets should only take partial AoE damage, to make up for the fact that they can’t evade, or even get out of AoE circles.
3. Pet bars should include a “Go to” and a “Stay” command. This is extremely important, and I was surprised this was not included in the game considering that this game is so heavily movement based. I can’t tell you how many uses these two simple commands can create.
4. Pet bars should have boons and conditions listed under them.
5. Make “Guard” and “Search and Rescue” a part of the pet bar, instead of a skill slot. Does anyone really Guard for its intended purpose? In fact, I don’t think this’d make a big difference even if it’s a part of the petbar. More info HERE
6. More extensive pet panel, better accessibility, allow players to look at different pets without having to switch to it

These are all the functionality based improvements that I can think of right now. I’m sure that many ranger players would agree with me that these need to be implemented. ArenaNet, if you’re reading this, please add these functions to pets as these changes really will make the ranger class much less crippled than they are now.

If you have any other suggestions, please post them here, try to keep them as short as possible so devs can read them quickly.

I support these pet changes.

i’d love to see what buffs my pet has without having him targeted… i don’t mind the stay and go to commands not existing because the F3 makes it so my pet just follows me around with no intent on leaving my side.

As for the aoe damage thing, the more and more i do high end events and dungeons the more and more i agree… like for christs sakes, if my pet can’t dodge out of one shot attacks PLEASE make him take like 1/3-1/2 less damage…

Well, if you have RTS experience, micromanaging pets with a “Go to” and a “Stay” command can definitely make a difference. For example, you could start a fight with your pet, and command him to go to the opposite direction of yourself while the pet still has the aggro to create distance between you and your enemy. Or for shortbow users, instead of having to run all the way around behind your target to apply the bleed, you can tell your pet to go behind the target so your enemy has his back to you, making it much easier to apply bleeds.

Not only that, if your pet stays in AoE circles, you can easily tell him to leave it without having to use F3 (sometimes F3 doesn’t work when you’re close to the pet)

Also, added a fifth suggestion about removing “Guard” and “Search and Rescue” and making it available at all times

These changes is the way it suppose to be. This would make the unique pet mechanics for the class the way, again, suppose to be!

I support this full heartily.

Please support or enlighten my thoughts and bits concerning spirits over here

I expected some tweaking for us rangers through the 9/24 patch. However, the F2 fix hasn’t even arrived yet. The devs need to give this some attention.

Something I’ve been finding a bit annoying is trying to view what each of my tamed pet’s abilities are without having to swap pets every single time. It would be nice to see that info more readily available. Unless it is somewhere and I just can’t find it.

Added:

• More extensive pet panel, better accessibility, allow players to look at different pets without having to switch to it

Emmiere.1058:

Something I’ve been finding a bit annoying is trying to view what each of my tamed pet’s abilities are without having to swap pets every single time. It would be nice to see that info more readily available. Unless it is somewhere and I just can’t find it.

I agree with you.

Also, if there wasn’t a countdown timer for the pet swap ability outside of combat, we wouldn’t have this problem to begin with.

The timers on pet swap and stow are not working well and should only trigger in combat. And just so we are clear what combat is, it is NOT taking fall damage. Right now, various “combat” stuff happens to your character when you take FALL DAMAGE. This should not happen.

Pets in this game are completely useless at holding threat.
40 Ranger here and i’m constantly kiting and running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off, the constant kiting in this game has gotten way past old.

The lack of power or the feeling of power has gotten way past old.
Love the game world, but i’m beginning to despise the design under the hood.