Guild Wars 2

Pet Variety Please!

The image of a Ranger, while different from game to game, has always been synonymous with the Rangers pet. So when you realize that you have access to such a limited amount of fauna in the game you feel cheated.

More Colors Please!

If we can tame the Black, Blue, Pink Red, White Moa’s why not let us tame the Green and Golden Variety’s as well?

In-Game Animals Rangers Would Like To Tame

Here is a list of current animals located in the game that I strongly feel should be tamable: Raptors, Rock dogs, Alpine Stalker, Coyotes, Armadillos, Osprey, Griffons, Raccoon, Crows, Deer, Moose, Goats, Sheep, Barracuda, Dolphins, Flying Insects such as the Dragonfly, Electric Fish, Ice Spiders, Bats, Marmox, Shrimp, Crabs, Minotaurs, Wargs, Rams, Plated Behemoths, and Skelk.

Tamable Animals Players Would Like To Have Added To The Game
Variety of Big Cats, Manta Rays, Eels, Variety of Sharks, Variety of Whales, Honey Badgers, Variety of Turtles, Phoenix, Ferrets, Variety of Fish, Dolyak, Variety of Squid, Variety of Octopus, Mammoths, Melandru’s Stalker.

Pet Evolution

I remember following up on Guild Wars 2, reading articles, visiting the website from time to time – trying my best to get any and all new info as it trickled to the masses. One thing that stuck out was the talk of the Pet Evolution System.

Now here is what was said about the Pet Evolution System in GW2 before the game was released.

“Pets have customization options. The first of these has to do with a pet’s evolution level. Pets evolve up to 20 evolution levels. Each pet type receives automatic bonuses at different evolution levels. For bears, these bonuses might be increased health or increased damage. Pets gain evolution points when the player gains XP while the pet is active. At certain evolution levels, pets will unlock ability slots (up to 4 total). Ability slots can be filled from a list of active pet abilities based on pet type.”

Now I’m not sure why this idea was scrapped. Maybe the developers didn’t have enough time to implement it but I can honestly say that playing a Ranger would have been more fun if a system like this existed.

So to help this idea get revisited I have added a few suggestions/tweaks to help the Pet Evolution idea become even better.

Pet Evolution – Visual Acknowledgement of Pet Progression

Working Synergistically with the Evolution idea from above Ranger Pets should visually evolve every 20 levels. Every 20th level the Ranger Pet will visually change to a slightly larger more ferocious/majestic/intimidating/powerful looking version leading all the way up to its ultimate form at level 80 where it looks deadly.

Pet Evolution – Sexing

One of the cool things in Guild Wars was the ability to see what sex your pet was. While this did not affect the pet in anyway I feel this idea should be brought back. To improve upon it, certain Pets could have a visual distinction between the male and female of its species.

For Example, Male River Drake could have a slightly brighter coloring, larger spinal spikes, and an overall larger girth when compared to its female counterpart.

Pet Evolution – Skill Unlocks

At each evolution level not only could the pet visually change but could also unlock a new unique ability for a total of 4 unique skills. The unique skills can be swapped similar to the way a player can change its utility/elite skills. This would allow players customization and variety when it comes to utilizing pets for different situations.

Pet A.I. – Quality of Life Improvements.

One of things I have noticed on my Journeys across Tyria is that the pet A.I. isn’t very intuitive. Pets stand on AOE without flinching, never dodge attacks, and tend to stand still and miss attacks when using their unique ability.

To remedy the first problem pets should also get an endurance bar in which they can utilize to avoid attacks, and AOE spells. To remedy the 2nd problem, pets should be able to use their unique ability while moving. This solves the problem of the pet staying still to howl while the enemy has just moved 10 yards ahead causing the howl to miss.

Rangers need the ability to order a pet to stay in a certain area, similar to flagging in GW1 and toggle pet unique skills so that they are on auto-cast is needed.

List of Pet Unique Abilities That Needs To Be Reworked

Suidae Family – Forage.

While Forage sounds great on paper, in real-time use its rather useless. In PvP stopping to pickup an improvised weapon instead of using your own will often result in death, same as dungeons. In both PvE and PvP the weapons are of too little use to bother with except for a quick chuckle.

I would like this skill replaced with another type of skill that is actually useful such as a knockdown/interrupt like a headbutt/bash.

Pet Rarity, and Rare Skins

A few pets that are rare to acquire should be added to the game. This gives players an incentive to go pet hunting so they can acquire this rare pet. This can either be done by timer, day/night cycle unlockable quests etc.

Another great addition to the game would be the ability to breed your pets to achieve rare skins that aren’t naturally found in the wild.

Pet Combat Toggle Option

As suggested by LEGION, a toggle option for pet combat in which you could completely turn off Ranger Pets from being used/seen while in combat. Think solo Ranger.

Credit

Galatic – Suggestion of Dolyak to be added to the list of animals currently in game players would like to tame.

LEGION – Concept of turning Ranger Pets off/on completely from gameplay.

Kitaya – Suggesting Alpine Stalker as a tamable pet.

Dinasaur – Suggesting Mammoths as a tamable pet.

zippo burntfur – Suggesting that Melandru’s Stalker get added to the game.

Suggestions?

See an animal in-game and think it would be cool if Rangers could tame it?

Have a suggestion for an animal you would added to the game for Rangers to tame?

Any suggestions for pet improvement?

Feel free to post it here so I can add it to the list above. Full credit for ideas/suggestions will be given.

Completely agree with OP. Especially with pet evolution to make the pet look different with age would be amazing.

How could you forget the Dolyak?
Why isn’t there a charmable Dolyak in GW2 yet, Arenanet!?

going to reply to this thread again with another “I agree with this thread.”

I did this earlier, and got a post infraction for saying just the below:

Like em all… great thread.

No idea why that got an infraction for posting off-topic.

While I personally am less concerned with pet evolution than others may be, I love the idea of improved pet AI, especially with respect to trying to dodge or otherwise avoid AoE attacks. I am also very much in favor of having a greater variety of pets available.

I like this as a concept overall.

Personally as a player I dislike using pets in general. So one addition I would add is the ability for the ranger to completely turn off pets and just play solo. Especially in groups and dungeons.

Galactic.6453:

How could you forget the Dolyak?
Why isn’t there a charmable Dolyak in GW2 yet, Arenanet!?

Yeah, I knew I forgot a few fauna found across the world. Dolyak would indeed be a cool pet.

Credit given in credits list.

LEGION.5834:

I like this as a concept overall.

Personally as a player I dislike using pets in general. So one addition I would add is the ability for the ranger to completely turn off pets and just play solo. Especially in groups and dungeons.

Excellent Idea. Sometimes you just don’t want to use a pet for whatever reason it may be.

Credit given in credits list.

Pet Unique Ability on Auto-Attack

The option to have the pet unique ability on auto-attack is needed.

Increase Pet Movement Speed

Even with the speed trait selected from the Rangers skill tree, pet speed is awfully slow. This becomes even more noticeable in PvP situations.

I approve of all of this. I’d love to have a black wolf, a lion or a griffon for my Ranger… I know my wife would salivate at a phoenix pet.

Khasalianus.8610:

I approve of all of this. I’d love to have a black wolf, a lion or a griffon for my Ranger… I know my wife would salivate at a phoenix pet.

I’m dying for a Crested Raptor pet myself, let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Yes, please, to all points mentioned by the OP.

Ranger pets are currently very limited in what they offer.

A lot of good suggestions there – in particular increasing the number of charmable animals in the world and also having different skills you can give your pet.

Yup pretty much

I would love to see the Alpine Stalker as a tameable pet, I totally love that skin and have wanted that since I first saw it in the beta weekends. Heck I wouldn’t even mind if it got the same skills as another cat, I just badly want that skin laugh My current main pet, a snow leopard, would change to a alpine stalker within a second if it became possibily.

I like a lot of the other suggestions about tameable pets and would likely try to find them, but my heart does beat extra about the Alpine Stalker.

One thing I would like to see, which I guess is a bug they will work on later on as it isn’t that important compared to other things. Is the fact that pets lose their name when they are put in the pet panel (or stable as I like to call it ;P ) It’s only a small thing, but a quite annoying one in my opinion atleast

Another thing I would love to see, is the possibilty to give our pets collars. I have noticed that the black moa has collar as well as “bracelets”. So the change to give our pets a collar (a leather collar for the felines/canines for example. Doesn’t have to be extravagant ), however I would prefer it to be something the player can decide. So that if they want a collar they can choose to have that, but if they don’t want it.. they don’t have to.

/Kaz

WvW + Pets=needs to change. Pets are THE most annoying thing in a battle.

I love all the suggestions! Pretty please, Anet?

Kitaya.7518:

I like a lot of the other suggestions about tameable pets and would likely try to find them, but my heart does beat extra about the Alpine Stalker.

Added Alpine Stalker to the list.

Kitaya.7518:

One thing I would like to see, which I guess is a bug they will work on later on as it isn’t that important compared to other things. Is the fact that pets lose their name when they are put in the pet panel (or stable as I like to call it ;P ) It’s only a small thing, but a quite annoying one in my opinion atleast

I didn’t bring it up because I believe, if I’m not mistaking, that its been brought up before. But since this thread is dedicated to pets, I’ll go over the problem again with possible suggestions for improvement.

Kitaya.7518:

Another thing I would love to see, is the possibilty to give our pets collars. I have noticed that the black moa has collar as well as “bracelets”. So the change to give our pets a collar (a leather collar for the felines/canines for example. Doesn’t have to be extravagant ), however I would prefer it to be something the player can decide. So that if they want a collar they can choose to have that, but if they don’t want it.. they don’t have to.

/Kaz

I too was considering this idea since I also noticed that the Black Moa seems to wear a spike collar and spiked ankle bracelet.

Pet Names

At the moment every Ranger from all across Tyria know of the Pet name bug. Currently Pet names only save if you don’t switch out your 4 pets for any that are in storage. If you happened to switch back to a previous pet, its name is reset to Juvenile.

I would love to have all pet names stored and remembered. This means names for all my pets even the ones that are in storage.

OP has the right idea. I think these, while not all necessary, are valid points that could be changed to make ranger pets more desirable.

Reporting Inappropriate Pet Names

Like players, pets too can have inappropriate names. However unlike players, pets currently can not be reported for an inappropriate name. A system similar to the one for reporting players is also needed for pets.

Skills:
Master’s Bond: Stacks go away when entering the water (even if the pet is the same one). For example, if I go swimming with Mr Cat and he has his 25 stacks of pwnage, it all disappears. Kind of annoying that it does this when the pet doesn’t actually change. The stacks also disappear when you log out (say if I were switching to another character for crafting).

Sick ‘Em: Doesn’t say how much more damage or how much faster the pet does/moves. Same with a lot of the other pet skills. Some solid numbers would be cool.

Additional Aggro Modes:
Add an “attack what I attack” mode in between “only what I tell you to” and “kill everything”.

Taming: I’d like to have to do stuff to tame my pet, like do a little challenge or whatever. It’s too easy to run up, hit F and then No and be done.
Edit: In the Wayfarer Foothills there’s a quest for capturing Dolyaks that’s kind of what I’m thinking. You’d need a net (craftable? consumable?) and have to chase the thing down, and any adults nearby would aggro hard.

Number of pets: I’d kind of prefer having only one pet for each place, or having a limited number. Instead of having a bunch of collectable pets, I’d rather have a small handful of pets I actually care about. Pets as more of a central thing than just an accessory to switch around and collect.

Bugs:
Sometimes the game forgets what I named my pet. I’ll switch between pets and it’ll rename it Juvenile ____. Been listed before, but it’s annoying.

Great post; I would love if ArenaNet implemented these ideas.

I especially love the rare pet idea. One of my absolute FAVORITE things about my Hunter in WoW was putting a ton of time into camping a rare, awesome looking pet and then feeling really accomplished when I finally succeeded.

However, it has to be designed so that other classes can’t grief them, which I’m sure ArenaNet would make sure of because they want to encourage cooperation. There were too many times in WoW that I watched someone come up and slaughter a rare as someone (or myself, a couple times) was in the middle of taming it. I don’t think I could deal with that again. :[

Owl Griffons.

That’s all I want. They are the cutest things ever. Please.. please, OWL GRIFFONS!

Why would you like to be able to tame a sheep?… I mean, seriously… A sheep… And racoons?… What would you like Anet to add as a raccoon’s special ability? Enable it to steal their enemy’s trash from their trashcan? And the sheep? Imagine it: “The sheep grows wool. Every 24th hour, you will be able to shave your sheep and gain 20x Wool scraps.” Very useful against bandits, no doubt about that!

I’m sure the dev teams can be creative when it comes to the passives. As for the option of sheep and Raccoon’s, I say why not? The more variety the better.

I really wouldn’t worry about Pet variety, you can almost guarantee there will be more types of pets added to the game. The way I see it you have an enormous amount of pets to choose from anyway.

And wow.. people want sheep and racoon pets? WTF this isn’t old mcdonalds farm.

Adzy.8370:

I really wouldn’t worry about Pet variety, you can almost guarantee there will be more types of pets added to the game. The way I see it you have an enormous amount of pets to choose from anyway.

Actually most people including myself consider it very tiny, especially the water pets.

Pet Accessories

While on my adventures across Tyria I happened to come along a fellow Ranger who had a Black Moa companion. What I immediately noticed on this pet was that he had not one but two accessories – A spiked collar and a spiked ankle bracelet. Another thin I noticed was that the Mistfire Wolf is wearing armor as well.

I think it would be cool if we too could add accessories to our Ranger pets. Accessories such kitten collars, bracelets, ribbons, war paint, handkerchiefs, scarves, bells armor and the like would be a refreshing addition into making our pets unique from other players, reflecting our and their style and nature.

While taking the time to relax, pets like their owners, could also wear town clothing such as scarves, sweaters, costumes, hats, booties etc.

The pet accessories can either be treated as cosmetic items and or treated as equippable items that improve stats. Perhaps even allow certain crafting professions such as Jewel Crafting and Leather Working to make these items.

I completely agree with all the improvement suggestions for the pet.

I demand a mammoth for my norn! It would be so epic.

Galactic.6453:

How could you forget the Dolyak?
Why isn’t there a charmable Dolyak in GW2 yet, Arenanet!?

I would love a mammoth, it would be found in wayfarer hills or some snowy place. It would be optimised for tanking for the ranger.

I… I just agree.

1000 times.

And maybe one more.

Update: Added Mammoths to the list.

Pet Dueling

A cool function would be the ability for fellow Rangers to have pets duel each other.
All the abilities would be on auto-cast including the unique ones.

Perhaps even events similar to chicken fights, where you would register pets to fight in competitions for prizes and such.

I want a pet char. Can’t I just enslave one and use it as a pet?

I want Tame Skelk

Vigilence.4902:

Pet Dueling

A cool function would be the ability for fellow Rangers to have pets duel each other.
All the abilities would be on auto-cast including the unique ones.

Perhaps even events similar to chicken fights, where you would register pets to fight in competitions for prizes and such.

Would like regular player dueling as well (and first).

I’m pretty good with all these suggestions – but ultimately, I am very happy with the pet system in the game. It could definitely be improved, but I’m not unhappy with it!

Yes, please. I agree with all of this, especially having dolphins as tamable pets. I was thinking about that while looking at the dolphins.

kamiks.4860:

I want Tame Skelk

It’s on the list Kamiks

Phantomrose.8627:

Yes, please. I agree with all of this, especially having dolphins as tamable pets. I was thinking about that while looking at the dolphins.

I never knew Dolphins existed in the game, but as one passed right in front of me I couldn’t help but wonder why weren’t they on the list of tamable pets. Would of been cool to have one especially considering the lack of variety when it comes to aquatic species as pets.

Would love to have a Risen Feline Pet. Or to be able to teach “skills” to them. Atm we kinda feel “MUST bear/feline”. Cause compared to them, others dont add much.

SsEeXxOo.9803:

Would love to have a Risen Feline Pet. Or to be able to teach “skills” to them. Atm we kinda feel “MUST bear/feline”. Cause compared to them, others dont add much.

I do agree, some of the other pets stats aren’t really up to snuff if you are looking for an alternative to the bear for tanking, or cat for dps.

Pet Snacks

A way to temporarily improve pet abilities in dungeons and PvE situations can be achieved through pet snacks. These snacks can act as a temporary buff similar to the way food currently works on players.

The pet snacks can be a cooking craftable item.

I’ll just add two things I’d like fixed/added to pets.

1st:
Toggle Auto casting F2 ability, make it not auto attack the target.
It’s so annoying that I have to pull my Moa back from attacking a boss that would one shot it every time I want my crit bonus.

2nd:
Disable pet aggro.
It pulls way too many mobs. This is especially annoying, considering even if you stow it, it will spawn every time you get hit.

LEGION.5834:

Personally as a player I dislike using pets in general. So one addition I would add is the ability for the ranger to completely turn off pets and just play solo. Especially in groups and dungeons.

One solution I can think of that could be implemented without much difficulty would simply be to make the “stow pet” feature a permanent toggle—the pet would not come back out unless specifically called out. Falling damage, loading another area, taking damage, none of that would affect it anymore.

If that happened though, I would want a keybinding for that button.

Aryto.5873:

LEGION.5834:

Personally as a player I dislike using pets in general. So one addition I would add is the ability for the ranger to completely turn off pets and just play solo. Especially in groups and dungeons.

One solution I can think of that could be implemented without much difficulty would simply be to make the “stow pet” feature a permanent toggle—the pet would not come back out unless specifically called out. Falling damage, loading another area, taking damage, none of that would affect it anymore.

If that happened though, I would want a keybinding for that button.

This suggestion was already added to the first post, but feel to keep the ideas coming.

I personally like to the look of the Mistfire Wolf, who is wearing chest armor. It would be cool if our pets could be dressed up in a similar fashion.

Shifted.6912:

I’ll just add two things I’d like fixed/added to pets.

1st:
Toggle Auto casting F2 ability, make it not auto attack the target.
It’s so annoying that I have to pull my Moa back from attacking a boss that would one shot it every time I want my crit bonus.

2nd:
Disable pet aggro.
It pulls way too many mobs. This is especially annoying, considering even if you stow it, it will spawn every time you get hit.

I think the problem with pet aggro atm is mainly due to the distance your pet is from you. I can sometimes see my pet 15-20 yards away just sitting. The pet should keep a closer distance at all times to avoid unnecessary pulling.

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