Guild Wars 2

There are some quality of life improvements needed for rangers to be able to run dungeons without having to worry about their pet becoming a serious problem for them rather than a benefit to the class. Ignoring all the survivability issues (from AoEs, lack of dodge) there are some situations where pets become a serious liability to the ranger.

In Twilight Arbor, finding a safe place to stand can become a very difficult thing. The poisonous blossoms are incredibly difficult to deal with when you have a blossom trigger revolving around you setting off as many as it can (this is when the pet is on standby). A lot of the time in this dungeon the pet is better off dead – it won’t draw aggro and it won’t trigger blossoms. I’ve had moments where I was safely shooting away and a blossom spawned under my pet and blew me up, I dodge away and my pet moves with me and it triggers more blossoms. I’ve also had encounters where I’ve sent the pet into the opponent (instead of having it on standby) and it’s triggered every blossom on the way to the mob (even a spider pet with it’s range has this problem) and gotten other people in my party killed. The ability for pets to trigger traps is unfair to rangers, it’s a dangerous wild card which can get you or your party killed and you don’t have the same level of control over it as everyone else has over their character. I’ve gotten to the point where I won’t even swap my pets out for many encounters because swapping it means the second pet will spawn on the opposite side of me and often trigger a blossom (if the first pet isn’t triggering anything, I’m not going to trade two seconds of quickness for a potentially blossom triggering pet).

Other times I’ve been raged at by groups because I had my pet on avoid combat for certain encounters and the only way for me to get close enough to DPS the mob was to move to everyone else, but my pet moved in front of me and to the side and aggroed a bunch of mobs. Maybe if they didn’t aggro mobs unless the pet did damage to them meaning the ranger only has to worry about himself even if the pet is avoiding combat. Sometimes it feels like I can’t win, choosing to forgo the DPS of a pet because precision positioning and aggro control are needed for some strategies and groups but the pet makes all of these harder.

It’s also annoying when I’m downed to try and use my pet res and have it blow up a blossom and get me killed rather than res me (a blossom which spawned underneath the pet after it arrived and I can’t see it until it’s too late) or even in other dungeons with traps, where the pet will trigger spikes and cause immediate death rather than slow death with a chance of res. Rangers already have it worse with a downed ability which doesn’t move our location, meaning many situations where you are downed you won’t res regardless (AoE, near the boss) but it’s also bugged (Lick Wounds seems to never work if their is a slight variation in the elevation you are standing on) and the pet can easily trigger any traps or blossoms underneath you.

I know some of these problems can be solved by not using Lick Wounds in certain situations, but generally the pet can become a serious hindrance in dungeons when positional awareness is a key component and it’s an unreasonable addition of micromanaging given to the class without the abilities to counter it and often results in the core class mechanic changing from something which is supposed to make us stronger, to something we don’t use because it’s a hindrance, to something that gets us killed.

honestly the dumbest thing about a pet is that stowing it isnt just a toggle. The pet comes back out when you enter combat.

Who the hell designed that? If I have stowed my pet, I dont want it coming back out until I am good and bloody ready.

Most problems with pet aggro/pet traps would be solved if you could safely stow your pet during fights.

But that becomes a problem with the ranger, pets are a core part of the class DPS. Dungeons and pets need to be designed in a way where having the pet and fighting is not only a viable choice but the optimal choice. I can see a case for a couple of encounters where pets might be justifiably stowed, but as the class mechanic the pet needs to be desirable in most encounters. Currently only a handful of pets feel viable for half the content, the rest of the time you wish the pet wasn’t there. I made the mistake of having my pet attack the wurm boss in TA today and I saw two people downed because of it’s pathing (and the pet died before it even reached the boss, this was a spider who couldn’t even live long enough running through blossoms to hit a boss from range). I now just let the pet die and don’t bring out the other until certain fights are over. Pets are a nuisance too often because of dungeon design.

Never count on your pet to help you kill anything.Utilize their CC abilities to try and synergize them with your own, and sacrifice them to save a player.

Thank you for your post!! I’m glad that you’re talking to people about this problem. Since pets are a big part of a ranger’s dps, it obviously puts us at a disadvantage when we can’t use our pets for their main purpose.

Another problem that has come up is the aggro range of pets in dungeons. They end up triggering traps and causing unwanted aggro in tight locations.

I think pets need a buff for dungeons, and they shouldn’t be able to trigger traps

Robert Hrouda.1327:

My main is a ranger (my fav class), and being that I designed dungeons, I know full well the frustration with having pets in dungeons.
I have spoken with the systems team at length about this problem, and we are looking into ways to enhance pet functionality in dungeons. I’ll express my main tactic now for the sake of starting dialogue about how best to uyse pets in dungeons right now:

I am going to assume that you are also including the pitiful A.I. of Necromancer minions in that discussion so that gets addressed at some point.

Robert got hit with the “kitten” censor. lol.
My main is also a ranger, and i usually use my pets for support, or just leave them beside me instead of sending them into combat.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

4. Swap pets constantly. If your swap is available, use it. It’s a 20 second cooldown, but swapping your pets in and out constantly brings different skills into play that aren’t in cooldown.

Robert, this makes master’s bond trait useless. it encourages us to keep one pet out as long as possible for the buff. im sure once you greatly improve pet survivability in dungeons, this inconsistency will go away.

You know what you should fix up on? The NPCs, they sometimes wreck pulls and it’s the most frustrating thing ever.

From my experience, not all traits are useful in all situations and areas. Finding the right ones that work well in respected areas is key to adaptation.

As it stands, the Master’s Bond trait is useful in pretty much no circumstances, since it not only resets on pet death, but also swapping, and even when you touch a bit of water. It doesn’t build up nearly fast enough to justify how quickly you can lose it all.

Ohoni.6057:

From my experience, not all traits are useful in all situations and areas. Finding the right ones that work well in respected areas is key to adaptation.

As it stands, the Master’s Bond trait is useful in pretty much no circumstances, since it not only resets on pet death, but also swapping, and even when you touch a bit of water. It doesn’t build up nearly fast enough to justify how quickly you can lose it all.

Thing is, fixing those problems would be as simple as putting the buff on the ranger instead of the pet. That way, it stays in play unless the ranger dies (or changes instances, as the case currently stands with any of those stack buffs).

Considering there are a number of traits that encourage swapping pets, it seems extremely silly to me that one of the big traits actively discourages it. And the response is simply to “not use it”? Shouldn’t the response, instead, be to make it actually synergize with the rest of the trait tree?

i also want to suggest not having my pet go into battle after i use his F2 ability even though i have “avoid combat” turned on. in battles where i have to constantly keep watch of my environment, the last thing i want is for my pet to go and do something i strictly commanded not to do. please lets have a second look at this feature which, as far as i can tell, isn’t working correctly.

Oh Snapalope.1378:

You know what you should fix up on? The NPCs, they sometimes wreck pulls and it’s the most frustrating thing ever.

+++++++++

AI needs to DIE. Especially on fights like Giganticus – during Phase one we were nicely stacked together, but dumbo AI decided to go play traditional Main Tank, and had grubs spawn on her/him. Was really irritating that the AI was considered a “player” even though you have NO control over them.

Considering there are a number of traits that encourage swapping pets, it seems extremely silly to me that one of the big traits actively discourages it. And the response is simply to “not use it”? Shouldn’t the response, instead, be to make it actually synergize with the rest of the trait tree?

I don’t mind too much that it discourages swapping, in the sense that it acts as a gambler, “do you want the buff, or do you want to swap,” there’s a fair mechanic there. It’s that the system penalizes you for forced swapping, like whenever you touch water, that makes the ability too finicky to use. My Thief stacks Condition based on kills, same mechanic, but it lasts the entire time I’m in the zone, even if I take a swim, and I can’t imagine bothering with it if it didn’t.

I also think it’s probably not positioned in the best tree, given that most of the other options in the tree encourage switching. It would probably be best put in one of the non-pet focused trees.

I do agree with Robert in the sense that “doctor, it hurts when I move my arm like this!” “well don’t move your arm like that.” Ok, fair cop, it’s good advice from one player to another as to how you should adapt to the system, and for now I too would suggest that you just never use that ability, but I do think ANew should do something on their end to make it more worthwhile, and maybe it never will be worth using inside Dungeons, maybe that won’t be what it’s for, not all abilities should be ideal for Dungeons, but it does need a better purpose than it currently has.

AI needs to DIE. Especially on fights like Giganticus – during Phase one we were nicely stacked together, but dumbo AI decided to go play traditional Main Tank, and had grubs spawn on her/him. Was really irritating that the AI was considered a “player” even though you have NO control over them.

True. The balance is that if enemies ignore him while he’s still capable of attacking, then you could cheese mobs that way. Perhaps the solution is to make it so that NPCs can attack mobs, but mos are immune to their damage, and do not agro on them in turn, until players start attacking that monster, so it essentially ignores the NPC until then, at which point they are allowed to contribute.

My biggest gripe with pets right now are that they’re targeted the same as players. What does this mean?

Guardian whirling on his staff for might? Sorry, 5 player capped, the Guardian, 1 melee and 3 minions just got the 12 stacks of might. Guardian popping Tome of Courage for quickness? Sure do love seeing that super fast Dog, 2 Jagged Horrors, and a Thief. Yes, I know these skills prioritize by proximity, but this makes it really awkward to hit the melee and ranged with any amount of pets out.

Boss spawning 3 AoEs on all players in the room? Enjoy dealing with an extra set for EVERY pet out. Try playing with your MM Necro friend and Ranger Friend in most dungeons, you’ll see what I mean. Admittedly most of these mechanics it’s not that big of a deal, but our Necro really really gets disheartened when he realizes that his minions are making the fight so much harder than it needs to be.

Boss using an AoE that will heal him a large amount if it hits something? Pets think it feels good. (Obviously you just don’t use pets on these fights, but still)

Ohoni.6057:

Considering there are a number of traits that encourage swapping pets, it seems extremely silly to me that one of the big traits actively discourages it. And the response is simply to “not use it”? Shouldn’t the response, instead, be to make it actually synergize with the rest of the trait tree?

I also think it’s probably not positioned in the best tree, given that most of the other options in the tree encourage switching. It would probably be best put in one of the non-pet focused trees.

That was my point.

One thing that bugs me about pets is, if they are supposed to be such a big part of a Ranger’s DPS, why do they die so quickly? I have 300 points in beast mastery and the little traits and utility skills to add additional healing, plus another 200 points in toughness and mostly toughness gear yet I find unless I use a bear all the time, my pet is going to die within seconds of sending him in to fight something. Is this working as intended? Are most pets basically useless except for a small buff or cc they might provide and making a single f2 attack before biting the dust?

As a ranger and a dev you MUST know that search and rescue suffers from the SAME bugs as lick wounds. If the body is on ANY kind of inclination the ability fails. On average these abilities work 2/10 times for me. Not only that but search and rescue require you to be within 900 range of the body or it fails altho if your ABOVE a target (IE: in a jumping puzzle) the range does not matter.

Have you tried to do the pirate captain in Arah? The one your supposed to hide behind the crates to avoid her balls of lightning that 1 shot you? Not so easy to get the pet behind that crate with its BAD Ai. If you dont get it behind the crate, any ball that hits the pet bounces off and hits you as well as anyone who is near you. In this fight our pet is a HUGE detriment not only to the ranger but to his entire party.

(On a side note to make this path interesting, i actually try to kill my static group mates with the bounce of the lightning without killing myself. Try killing the pirate with a group member actively trying to kill you)

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

One thing that bugs me about pets is, if they are supposed to be such a big part of a Ranger’s DPS, why do they die so quickly? I have 300 points in beast mastery and the little traits and utility skills to add additional healing, plus another 200 points in toughness and mostly toughness gear yet I find unless I use a bear all the time, my pet is going to die within seconds of sending him in to fight something. Is this working as intended? Are most pets basically useless except for a small buff or cc they might provide and making a single f2 attack before biting the dust?

Unfortunately, pets don’t scale with gear. Which I think is a HUGE oversight.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

From my experience, not all traits are useful in all situations and areas. Finding the right ones that work well in respected areas is key to adaptation.

It would be great if changing traits was easier in general, i.e., not buried in a submenu of the Hero panel. I like the current UI when I have a few minutes to play with it, but in a dungeon or even a hectic open world area like Orr it takes up the entire window so I won’t see when I get ambushed, what my allies are doing, etc.

It would be great if there was a button in the main UI (say, to the right of the elite skill slot) that I could click on to change my major traits out of combat. It could expand and have tooltips similarly to how you select slot skills.

I realize that’s a huge request, and I have one more. I would love to reallocate trait points at will (out of combat of course) for free. Having to go back to the trainer for a respec is a huge pain in general, but especially if your current build is poorly suited to a dungeon you’ve already started. Having to pay to respec traits reminds me of Refund Points from GW1, which were completely removed after a few months.

Dear Robert Hrouda, since your main is ranger i would like to ask u some questions
a) If you micromanage your pet by using F3 and F1 dont you lose damage (by making your pet not hitting)?
b) If you swap your pet with another dont you lose dmg (couse the pet has to travel to the target)
c) Can you save your pet from a room full of red circles?(you dodge)
d) If you play traits so your pet can survive longer (you still has to micromanage), dont u sacrifice usefull traits that other classes get and are reliable (compared to pets).
e) Do you like pets AI?
f) To make sense all the above (and the dps focus), is ranger’s dps balance with their pets compared to other classes? (if no then ranger should do more dps with a dps alive if yes then ranger still lose dps in any of the above occasions).
Thanx in advance.

I think his point was guys, that pets are used for utility. I am not sure where on his list it says Pets are our most important DPS attribute. In fact, I am not sure I read on his post anything about DPS.

Should make one think, eh?

1. Never count on your pet to help you kill anything.Utilize their CC abilities to try and synergize them with your own, and sacrifice them to save a player.

That’s a fair enough point. I still like to get some DPS out of my pet but I might have to try to be more… sacrificial with my pet. It’s tempting to tailor your play style to keeping pets alive to maximise efficiency, I will look into the value of using them for more situational and temporary purposes.

2. Search and Rescue: This utility skill is amazing in dungeons. It doesn’t res your pet, but if your pet does go down, they will still help another player out.

I haven’t used this since the beta. It had a huge cool down and it always seemed to bug out, glad to hear it’s working I might have to try it. Reading some of the other posts in this thread, it looks like it might still be bugged and if it functions the same as Lick Wounds (ie doesn’t function on slight differences in elevation is my suspicion) I might drop this skill pretty quickly. I do like the idea of it working while the pet is downed. It’d be embarrassing to send a pet in to revive a player only to have it trigger blossoms and kill the player, I will have to be careful with this one.

3. Lick wounds: If your pet dies in a fight, and you go down, try not to get back up until you can hit your 3 skill. This will kick res your pet, and allow you to get back up without having to swap pets.

OK I’m not sure I want to say this because it’s possible it’s a bug (or I’ve just been very mistaken) but my impression has been if the ranger is downed and then rallys, the pet is automatically revived. I just tested it on my own and it seems to be the case, I’m not sure if it works the same with other players reviving your or using your 4 skill to self res, but rallying certainly revives your pet. I’ve actually used this in dungeons to get a free pet res by getting downed intentionally then rallying off of blossoms.

4. Swap pets constantly. If your swap is available, use it. It’s a 20 second cooldown, but swapping your pets in and out constantly brings different skills into play that aren’t in cooldown.

That’s generally a great idea and I even run the 20% cooldown reduction trait on that one (although I might swap it out for shout reduction if search and rescue is as good as you say).

My most effective pets have been spiders for crowd control (for a 3.5 second immobilise and a 2 second stun on the jungle spider f2), which can really help with some of the tougher melee mobs. The poison is great when no-one else in the group carries reliable poison and you occasionally have to worry about heals. Their range also helps avoid some of the glass cannon feel of the pet while side stepping some of the pet aggroing issues.

I’ve also run bears which can actually tank for certain encounters (with the regen signet and the toughness signet) but I’ve found more use from other pets if you put the effort in. I haven’t tried the wolf fear howl, the knock downs are a good point as well, so I will have to give that a go.

Moas are great if your party wants to melee a bit. They are somewhat durable and their AoE heal is surprisingly strong (especially compared to the fern wolf regen) and I’ve had warrior/guardian parties who really appreciated the additional healing. I tend to go for dazing instead of protection or fury, I find crowd control to be the most in demand. Moa heals were the first time I realised pets might be worth swapping out based on party composition.

Finally for encounters where I won’t be spending much time sending in my pet for whatever reason I might alternate the pocket AoE buff pets (stalker for 5 stacks of might or the red moa for fury, fern wolf if I’m desperate for heals). You really want them to stay alive though because they become significantly less productive when downed (the cooldown on swapping becomes too long). I agree with Gibby though, it’s annoying to set the pet on avoid combat but see it run to your target when you use a buff F2 skill. I know I can micro this quickitteno avoid the problem but it would be nice if it didn’t treat a buff F2 skill like an attacking F2 skill.

In general I guess I need to think more about how my pet can help my party through CC and the F2 skills. I agree master’s bond is a bad trait for dungeons (personally I think it’s a bad trait period once you’ve levelled up more – it encourages lazy and inefficient use of the pet and it teaches players to avoid swapping and accessing all the benefits of swapping your pet), although it could be better (and still make sense flavour wise) if it was only lost on death, and pet swapping didn’t effect it.

I just spent 8 hours in Arah the seer’s path. Priest of dwayana boss 3 rangers. SParks pulling on pets is just amazing. Passive mode pets of dead players running off to attack sparks amazing again. One of the other rangers got so angry he is gonna swap his main char for something without a pet.

They do die crazy fast imo. They had this problem in Wow too for a while and at one point they made it so bosses aoe wouldn’t hit them.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

1. Never count on your pet to help you kill anything.Utilize their CC abilities to try and synergize them with your own, and sacrifice them to save a player.

I do not agree on your vision. Ranger Pets give the best dps. A ranger without pet will fall far behind other class in term of damage. Depending on your spec, it account for more than 50% of the dps (i would say it can go up to 70%).
Major gameplay component of ranger increase pet damage, yet in dungeon are very hard to use or even impossible on some area.

The main issue is really that dungeon are designed with lots of movement/escape mecanism (which I found really great) but those are not compatible with the ranger pets.
I don’t using pet commands to get him out of trouble except that most times :
- pet cannot get out of danger zone quick enough
- takes too much damage and get killed before you can react
Melee pets have the biggest issue overall as the melee combats are designed with the highest requirements of dodging.

It would be great if there was a button in the main UI (say, to the right of the elite skill slot) that I could click on to change my major traits out of combat. It could expand and have tooltips similarly to how you select slot skills.

Yeah, what I’d definitely like to see is to be able to “set” alternate decks of traits and Utilities that you can swap to as easy as hitting a key when not in combat. Like for example on my thief I want to have the movement buff utility and the fall damage trait when doing jump puzzles or traveling, but when in serious combat mode I want to swap those out for poison and +Might on dodge , and that’s always more hassle than it really needs to be.

Still, it’s a testament to how good this game is that we complain about such petty little concerns.

Efaicia.3672:

I think his point was guys, that pets are used for utility. I am not sure where on his list it says Pets are our most important DPS attribute. In fact, I am not sure I read on his post anything about DPS.

Should make one think, eh?

If this where the case, then there wouldn’t be an entire branch of traits dedicated to improving your pet’s effectiveness in combat, not to mention a multiple utilities and an elite that improve your pet’s combat prowess for a short period of time. Not to mention pets that have reduced survivability to make room for increased precision and/or attack damage.

If they were purely for utility, they probably wouldn’t have any attacks at all, or you’d at least have complete control over their entire skill set (instead of just 1/4 of their skills). But after reading through the beastmastery tree, and looking at some of the pets who trade all utility on a couple of their skills for pure damage, there’s just no logical reason to come to the conclusion that the pets are used solely for utility and shouldn’t expect consistent DPS from them to compliment the Ranger’s own damage.

a huge problem with the pets is the fact that “Avoid Combat” doesnt mean they move and dodge it as the words mean all they do is blood stand there looking at what is hitting them,

if its not ment to move and dodge then change the name of that toggle to “Standby” coz as it is right now its pointless calling it “Avoid Combat”.

also having the Fern Hound out while in “Avoid Combat” and using its F2 ability which is regen the Fern Hound will run into battle after using it and start attacking even tho it is sent to not attack.

i don’t really have much of a problem with my pets in dungeons or jumping puzzles, the blooms still suck like always but they are easy enough to dodge if your pet triggers them even if you roll right into another one you can still dodge it or used your healing which should remove the poison.

and you can use your pet to do some nice DMG so Robert staying that a pet is basicly useless is false, pets are great for dmg if you use the right skills sure they might not last to long in the battle but most of the time they last long enough to take a nice chunk out of the thing your vsing and give you a nice bit of buffs,

also to help maybe add some resistances to the pets like the Fern Hound shouldn’t really be effected so much from poison, or the ice drake by ice attacks but also have weaknesses E.g. Fern Hound and Ice Drake are weak against fire base attacks, this would give the pets more usefulness and also have players strategies more with what pets they should use.

My main issue with pets is how often they miss attacks cause targets move. Their attack animations just seem too long, especially F2 attack animations. This is more annoying in PvP but comes up in PvE given how mobile the fights can be.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Nerva, change your trait. We have a system in place that allows you to swap out traits with no punishment and little inconvenience. In the open world it’s a much more feasible thing to keep 1 pet out for a long time and rack up a stack of bonuses, but dungeons encourage you to change your tactics up and adjust to new and different challenges.

From my experience, not all traits are useful in all situations and areas. Finding the right ones that work well in respected areas is key to adaptation.

Any suggestions for fights like Subject Alpha where your pet gets 1-2 shot by spammed AoEs? I wouldn’t hate my prof so much if part of my utility didn’t get taken out of the fight three seconds after I summon it.

How’s this for a solution:

Let us write the Pet AI for ourselves.

Because, in all honesty, ANet can’t put as much effort into it as the players would. And you’re going to keep getting complaints about it until you either make it smarter than the player (which isn’t possible) or give players control over how it messes up.

Ah ok so all pets are essentially useless for dps. Maybe I should switch to warrior. Hmmm.

Is it just me, or is this all just an issue with people refusing to put their pets on passive and actually forcing them to attack specific targets?

WoW had a similar issue, and the community consensus was that you just always leave your pets on passive. This has been a rule I followed in every game where I played a pet class (and had the option, I know necros don’t), and I have not had ANY issues with my Ranger.

holy smokes! what a god kitten genius you are! no one has thought of that!! pets on passive?! wow!

… hmmmm, only if pets didn’t go off passive once you use their F2 skill. or! only if they didn’t targeted by boss AoEs. OR! if they didn’t get one shotted by basically everything in a dungeon!!

you, however, are the only exception. kudos!

when the developer who plays a ranger admits to the problem, it means there is a problem. most of us wait patiently until it gets resolved. during the mean time, go try out CoE and tell me about that “passive” button .. or the life span of that pet when you return.

gibby.9328:

holy smokes! what a god kitten genius you are! no one has thought of that!! pets on passive?! wow!

… hmmmm, only if pets didn’t go off passive once you use their F2 skill. or! only if they didn’t targeted by boss AoEs. OR! if they didn’t get one shotted by basically everything in a dungeon!!

you, however, are the only exception. kudos!

when the developer who plays a ranger admits to the problem, it means there is a problem. most of us wait patiently until it gets resolved. during the mean time, go try out CoE and tell me about that “passive” button .. or the life span of that pet when you return.

Ouch. Apply cold water to burned area.

Honestly, if I had the ability to do so, I would perma-stow my pet in all but the most dire of encounters. The thing just bothers me, gets in the way, takes too long to carry out F2 orders, and has a bad habit of running 4-500 units out in front of me after I’ve already stopped moving, which often pulls things early.

Can we make pets optional? I would trade in my entire menagerie of fur, fangs, and failure for traps to become our passive F1-F4. They’re more reliable, controllable, and I don’t have to yell at them to get off my couch.

holy smokes! what a god kitten genius you are! no one has thought of that!! pets on passive?! wow!
… hmmmm, only if pets didn’t go off passive once you use their F2 skill. or! only if they didn’t targeted by boss AoEs. OR! if they didn’t get one shotted by basically everything in a dungeon!!
you, however, are the only exception. kudos!
when the developer who plays a ranger admits to the problem, it means there is a problem. most of us wait patiently until it gets resolved. during the mean time, go try out CoE and tell me about that “passive” button .. or the life span of that pet when you return.

^This. All of this.
THANKYOU.

I started using a wolf in Twilight Arbor and I’m a convert. I really found the fear skill to be priceless on the difficult pulls and the precious few seconds it buys are really great. Relieving that kind of pressure from my party helped people either move into better positions, res downed players or hold a position that was being pressured. It’s actually quite powerful when you can interrupt a boss chain or channel skill (I used it often against the graveling boss which causes the roof the collapse, interrupting some of those skills with my wolf fear felt great). It really is a powerful tool that rangers don’t otherwise have access to directly. It’s knockdown and cripple are also great for keeping hard hitting melee off of the rest of my party. Its easy to res a pet, team mates are harder.

Aside from that I still enjoy spiders as an alternate pet. The immobilise and poison are great, but just as importantly they can often survive long enough (thanks to their range) for me to bring back my wolf with a 15 second cooldown rather than a 40+ one. The moa is still tanking/healing and I haven’t bothered bringing back the bears to tank nor will I bother with DPS pets in dungeons with their current design.

I’ve also dropped signet of the wild (health regen really helps forgive mistakes when learning dungeons) for search and rescue. It’s still buggy and has elevation issues when resing (I’m talking a slight slope, not on top of a mushroom or something) but when it does work it can save a member. The fact that it works when the pet is downed is just gravy. It is annoying when the pet chooses Morrigan (the defeated NPC) over one of my allies though, and the range has also been a problem a couple times. Only once has it killed someone by triggering blossoms (seemingly even when downed).

Also instead of swapping the pet as soon as the CD is up, I’ve found you can keep the pet up a lot longer if you save it for when the pet is almost dead. Sometimes I really want to alternate those F2 skills, but saving a pet from a boss AoE (Malrona, the spider boss is really good practive for this) by swapping it out as the red circle appears can be invaluable. You don’t get to use the F2 skill as often, but you gain access to the other three pet skills for as long as it’s alive. If you constantly swap the cool down will be up when you need it most to save the pet, so unless I know I will want the F2 skill, some fights I try to save the swap as a kind of pet dodge roll.

There are a lot of problems with pets, many of which I said in my OP and haven’t changed my mind about, but it really is worth looking at different pets you didn’t use (or thought were too fragile) and seeing how different pets work for different encounters and party set ups. I’m finding that while pets as DPS aren’t doing it for me, the utility some of them provide, while difficult to use and facing survivability issues, can really improve their performance. They have a lot of issues, but there is some potential to them.

Wouldn’t it be cool, if we could turn the kittens off while in combat too? :-)

I don’t play a ranger, but I’ve noted that several rangers have had difficulty putting their pets away when attempting to do careful pulls or on bosses where the pet is another trigger point for abilities (alpha, giganticus) . When a class feature becomes a huge liability, the class becomes instantly unworkable for dungeons and people will actively avoid inviting rangers.