Guild Wars 2

Hello dear devs,

The new Aetherblade dungeon has brought a lot of displeasing comments all across the ranger forums. I consider myself a very good ranger, I barely do have any complaints as I have managed to work around a lot of the existing ranger limitations.

However, when it comes to pet AI I have a couple of suggestions for you:

1. Make the pet return to the ranger’s exact location when it is on passive move, or when it is called to return back to the ranger.

I believe this can help fix a lot of positional issues regarding pet AI. As you can clearly notice by experiencing your pet die a lot in the Aetherblade dungeon, due to it not being able to survive the lasers; since it does not walk on top of the crates when I command it to come back to me or set it to passive mode.

2. Furthermore, when a pet with a non-aggressive F2 ability such as fern hound’s howl which heals allies, executes the F2 skill; it will immediately attack whatever enemy you are attacking, even if the pet has been set to passive mode. This has a backwards intentional effect.

What do I mean? You are in a dungeon instance, fighting a boss, a large number of enemies in WvW, walking down a very dangerous area where you don’t want your pet alerting every enemy you are around. You set your pet to passive mode just to be safe, then you use your pet F2 ability to apply a boon to you/your allies, but your pet runs and attacks the first enemy you see. Why did they do that? I don’t want to send it to it’s death, I don’t need it to unintentionally start a boss fight, I don’t want it to bring an extra group of enemies my way. What if I am in the middle of a fight, my pet is on passive mode, I use F2 and it goes off and attacks an enemy I don’t need it to?

I hope the above represents my point. After almost a year in play, these changes I believe are necessary. So I hope you devs manage to catch this topic and mark it in your list of future changes, I believe in you!

To all others who have experienced this before, please bump up this topic!

Ok, so this is the second time today I’ve seen something about this dungeon, which gives me pause since I’ll be doing it with my Ranger. Anyway, my question is, what is the significance of your pet getting killed by lasers? Is there a fight going on during the laser thing, or is it just an obstical to pass? If it’s an obstical, does something extra happen if someone dies to the lasers? So far I’m seeing no reason not to simply just let your pet die, finish the room then swap it. It makes no difference then where it is or what it’s doing.

On the point of passive mode, I get what you’re saying, but it is probably too small a sample size to warrant a change. The idea of passive mode is not to prevent them from attacking, it’s to prevent them from retaliating. The basic purpose was so that they wouldn’t automatically attack mobs they aggroed while you were running around. Since they no longer draw aggro at all without having started the fight, it doesn’t matter. Of course it also prevents them from attacking if something attacks you, but since that is going to disrupt your stride anyway I see no point to it.

Here’s an idea, though. I don’t know how much of an overhaul this would require, but it could be very cool, and it might actually be the solution that a LOT of people have been looking for. While agressive there’s no change, this wouldn’t fix your problem but I don’t really know how to. While passive make the pet effectively defeated, and change it from having an active ability to a passive aura relevant to it. This would be a big change since every pet would get a new ability. Some auras would inflict conditions, others proffer boons, each relevant to the specific pet.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Ok, so this is the second time today I’ve seen something about this dungeon, which gives me pause since I’ll be doing it with my Ranger. Anyway, my question is, what is the significance of your pet getting killed by lasers? Is there a fight going on during the laser thing, or is it just an obstical to pass? If it’s an obstical, does something extra happen if someone dies to the lasers? So far I’m seeing no reason not to simply just let your pet die, finish the room then swap it. It makes no difference then where it is or what it’s doing.

It’s not as simple as it appears. When you are in the dungeon, your pet does not die easily unless it is hit by the lasers. What is the significance? It is simply a dungeon behavior that takes away from the ranger pet, because it is absolutely helpless. I tried very hard to keep my pet from dying so that it could provide a helpful AoE health, when my heal skill was on cool down and I had already been brought to the brink of death by the lasers + golem damage. Or perhaps a wolf howl, which could have given me a few extra seconds to recover and stay in the fight for longer. That is just an example, however the pet dies even after wisely timing my pet swaps. They just have no chance and I feel that this is not fair, I am pet-less and it’s not because I do not know how to handle my pet, it’s the dungeon mechanic and it is literally unavoidable.

Kal Spiro.9745:

On the point of passive mode, I get what you’re saying, but it is probably too small a sample size to warrant a change. The idea of passive mode is not to prevent them from attacking, it’s to prevent them from retaliating. The basic purpose was so that they wouldn’t automatically attack mobs they aggroed while you were running around. Since they no longer draw aggro at all without having started the fight, it doesn’t matter. Of course it also prevents them from attacking if something attacks you, but since that is going to disrupt your stride anyway I see no point to it.

I agree with your point here, but you miss my point if you don’t see why I want a modification to the pet -passive move- mechanic. It’s not to completely cancel them from attacking, as I can intentionally activate F1 (attack that enemy) on command. See, F1 is an attack directive, while F2 is an activate ability directive. If F2 activates a ‘passive ability’ such as a heal, a protection boon, etc.. why would it command my pet to ‘attack and activate ability’ while it is set to passive mode? If your pet is in passive, as you stated above, we want to prevent them from retaliating, which is to say enter in combat or interfere with combat. I want it to stay passive, unless I use an ‘offensive’ F2 ability. Why you say? Because an offensive F2 ability could work as an attack this guy + activate your ability. Now that is clearly intended, but it is working in a way that I consider to be unintentional.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Here’s an idea, though. I don’t know how much of an overhaul this would require, but it could be very cool, and it might actually be the solution that a LOT of people have been looking for. While agressive there’s no change, this wouldn’t fix your problem but I don’t really know how to. While passive make the pet effectively defeated, and change it from having an active ability to a passive aura relevant to it. This would be a big change since every pet would get a new ability. Some auras would inflict conditions, others proffer boons, each relevant to the specific pet.

This here is an interesting suggestion, although it defeats the purpose of current mechanic for the pet F1 during passive mode. There are many situations in which you want your pet to stay passive, but use it to lure a group of enemies, while staying away from combat. Why? perhaps you want to lure a champion, or a legendary, or a zerg… but you don’t want your pet to die by accidentally running back to the enemy, which is what happens when it’s set to aggressive mode. I admit though, its a pretty cool idea, but I wonder what the devs or lore people have to say about that.

None of the F2 abilities are passive. Passive is not the same as benefit oriented. The simple reason it works the way it does is because there are no conditional responses, due to the nature of pets and how ANet expects them to be used. They don’t expect you to use the F2 ability out of combat, therefore, even if the ability it benefitial rather than combat oriented it sets them to combat.

In any case there is always F3. If you don’t want them to attack whether you sick them on something, or they are set to aggressive, you just hit F3 and they come back to you. If you can do it before they actually hit something then you don’t even enter combat.