Guild Wars 2

I did a thorough test as to why many times my pet doesn’t use F2 immediately after I command, and here’s what I found out, and I was shocked by how broken pet AI is, it’s probably more broken than it used to be.
Ok, currently most pet has an AI like this, REGARDLESS of what type of F2 they’re using.

If there’s no target or no enemy nearby, the AI is fine, pet will use F2 immediate after I press it. However here comes the real problem. When there’s a foe nearby, when you press F2, what pet will do is to CHARGE to enemy REGARDLESS OF WHAT TYPE OF SKILLS THEY HAVE, and ONLY USE F2 WHEN THE PET’S SKILL RADIUS IS WITHIN THE ENEMY. EVEN DISELCTING TARGET DOESN’T WORK, THE PET WILL CHARGE TO THE NEAREST ENEMY HE CAN SEE AND ONLY USE F2 WHEN HE’S NEAR THAT ENEMY. BOTH COMBAT MODE AND AVOID COMBAT MODE CAN’T FIX THIS PROBLEM.

This broken AI applied to BEAR, WOLF, DOGS AND JUNGLE STALKER TOO. When I try to use my bear to cleanse, what my bear will do is he’ll try to get close to the enemy before he uses his cleanse, WTH? It suppose to be a self support skill, but using this aggressive AI? Does my pet try to cure the foe’s condition not mine!?
To make the matter worse, when I try to fight a thief and start using my wolf’s F2 when the thief enters stealth, what pet does is he’ll rush to the nearest none stealth target and try to use F2 on that random target, so thief can just easily approach me and land a backstab. Many times Ik thief is coming, and switch to wolf and press F2, my pet will just rush forward to thief’s previous stealth location and try to F2 there. This type of AI clearly affects my performance and greatly hinders ranger.

Seriously Anet, WE CAN CONTROL THE PET TO THE LOCATION WE WANT THEM TO USE THE SKILL. WE DON’T NEED YOU TO ADD THAT EXTRA AI THAT DECIDE WHEN PET IS GOING TO USE F2 FOR US! PLEASE JUST REMOVE THAT AI AND LET US JUST USE F2 EXACTLY WHEN WE WANT TO!

Wow you are getting pretty annoyed and irrational with your auto-targetting option on huh? Turn it off. Go to " option" if you don’t know where to start and your problem is solved.

Regarding to the wolf case, yes your wolf will run into the thief if you select him/her as a target and the wolf will likely to continue to execute their F2 although the thief getting stealth, especially during the execution of the skill. But the good thing is that you are the one with the brain! You CAN control it as long as you aware what is going on. If you know the thief is getting stealth, you can cancel your wolf F2 by pressing F3. But switching your pet while your current pet is executing their skill will deny their effect and put the skill into recharge/cooldown state.

I don’t seem to have this problem, granted I don’t use ranger in pvp, so I can’t say much.

I haven’t experienced this.

My main pets are a jungle stalker and black moa. The stalker’s F2 skill grants might to allies, the moa’s is a cone AoE with a small range.

If I hit F2 the stalker will use his ability almost immediately, wherever he is. In fact, what I often do is use F1 to send him in to attack an enemy then hit F2 when he’s just outside melee range (so the might goes to melee players who are more likely to benefit from it, but my pet isn’t being hit while using the skill). He stops wherever he is, uses the skill and then continues moving in to attack.

The moa will run to my target before using it, but that’s exactly what I want to happen as it’s wasted if he’s out of range.

It is hard to tell in PVE because mostly you either use buff before engage (which I said it’s normal condition), or by the time they use buff the enemy is already close enough to the pet, so they’ll use it anyway. This problem exists most often in WvW.

I play pve with Ranger mostly.. got 2 of them and Im not getting these problems at all

my pet occasionally auto attacks when I don’t want him to but F2 skills generally work fine
I’d advise using F3 before F2 if you want to use a pet buff on yourself and pay attention to where your pet is and what its doing before popping F2 skills

on a second note
are you using any Pet skills in your Utility slots?
I use Sic Em and occasionally when I press F2 and then pop Sic Em it sometimes cancels the F2 and causes the pet to charge

Teratus.2859:

I play pve with Ranger mostly.. got 2 of them and Im not getting these problems at all

my pet occasionally auto attacks when I don’t want him to but F2 skills generally work fine
I’d advise using F3 before F2 if you want to use a pet buff on yourself and pay attention to where your pet is and what its doing before popping F2 skills

on a second note
are you using any Pet skills in your Utility slots?
I use Sic Em and occasionally when I press F2 and then pop Sic Em it sometimes cancels the F2 and causes the pet to charge

I tried F3 before, keep calling him back and then press f2
And then my wolf run back to that random target again, while thief got to my back and got a free backstab because pet doesn’t want to use F2 when I press it. He’s so eager to chase that other non invisible target and get him within range of his f2..

Like I said , PVE condition it doesn’t happen often because your targets are most likely within range of F2 already, because yknow, most PVE mobs don’t stealth.

Aomine.5012:

I did a thorough test as to why many times my pet doesn’t use F2 immediately after I command, and here’s what I found out, and I was shocked by how broken pet AI is, it’s probably more broken than it used to be.
Ok, currently most pet has an AI like this, REGARDLESS of what type of F2 they’re using.

If there’s no target or no enemy nearby, the AI is fine, pet will use F2 immediate after I press it. However here comes the real problem. When there’s a foe nearby, when you press F2, what pet will do is to CHARGE to enemy REGARDLESS OF WHAT TYPE OF SKILLS THEY HAVE, and ONLY USE F2 WHEN THE PET’S SKILL RADIUS IS WITHIN THE ENEMY. EVEN DISELCTING TARGET DOESN’T WORK, THE PET WILL CHARGE TO THE NEAREST ENEMY HE CAN SEE AND ONLY USE F2 WHEN HE’S NEAR THAT ENEMY. BOTH COMBAT MODE AND AVOID COMBAT MODE CAN’T FIX THIS PROBLEM.

This broken AI applied to BEAR, WOLF, DOGS AND JUNGLE STALKER TOO. When I try to use my bear to cleanse, what my bear will do is he’ll try to get close to the enemy before he uses his cleanse, WTH? It suppose to be a self support skill, but using this aggressive AI? Does my pet try to cure the foe’s condition not mine!?
To make the matter worse, when I try to fight a thief and start using my wolf’s F2 when the thief enters stealth, what pet does is he’ll rush to the nearest none stealth target and try to use F2 on that random target, so thief can just easily approach me and land a backstab. Many times Ik thief is coming, and switch to wolf and press F2, my pet will just rush forward to thief’s previous stealth location and try to F2 there. This type of AI clearly affects my performance and greatly hinders ranger.

Seriously Anet, WE CAN CONTROL THE PET TO THE LOCATION WE WANT THEM TO USE THE SKILL. WE DON’T NEED YOU TO ADD THAT EXTRA AI THAT DECIDE WHEN PET IS GOING TO USE F2 FOR US! PLEASE JUST REMOVE THAT AI AND LET US JUST USE F2 EXACTLY WHEN WE WANT TO!

Agree that we need changes.
As ranger with 1,4k hours i can tell you that pet takes practice.
You can trigger your F2 at any point and they don’t have to run to target.

How to achieve this:
A .. you
B .. enemy
C .. pet

If C runs from A to B, you want to target pet, and F1.
Next step, you want to trigger your pet F2 when ever you want, and not when pet gets in range. In order to achieve this you have to (remove target) left click on ground to just remove target and follow by hitting F2 ASAP. This will trigger instant F2 spell casting ( if you use alpha wolf for fear, or hound to immobalize) .

If you don’t remove target, C will run from A to B till it’s in range, and try to use F2 then.

People underestimate rangers, but they don’t know how much skill does ranger take to go on pro level. Every ele mesmer warrior guard or engie can be decent, but to be decent ranger, is lots of effort.

Firelysm.4967:

Aomine.5012:

I did a thorough test as to why many times my pet doesn’t use F2 immediately after I command, and here’s what I found out, and I was shocked by how broken pet AI is, it’s probably more broken than it used to be.
Ok, currently most pet has an AI like this, REGARDLESS of what type of F2 they’re using.

If there’s no target or no enemy nearby, the AI is fine, pet will use F2 immediate after I press it. However here comes the real problem. When there’s a foe nearby, when you press F2, what pet will do is to CHARGE to enemy REGARDLESS OF WHAT TYPE OF SKILLS THEY HAVE, and ONLY USE F2 WHEN THE PET’S SKILL RADIUS IS WITHIN THE ENEMY. EVEN DISELCTING TARGET DOESN’T WORK, THE PET WILL CHARGE TO THE NEAREST ENEMY HE CAN SEE AND ONLY USE F2 WHEN HE’S NEAR THAT ENEMY. BOTH COMBAT MODE AND AVOID COMBAT MODE CAN’T FIX THIS PROBLEM.

This broken AI applied to BEAR, WOLF, DOGS AND JUNGLE STALKER TOO. When I try to use my bear to cleanse, what my bear will do is he’ll try to get close to the enemy before he uses his cleanse, WTH? It suppose to be a self support skill, but using this aggressive AI? Does my pet try to cure the foe’s condition not mine!?
To make the matter worse, when I try to fight a thief and start using my wolf’s F2 when the thief enters stealth, what pet does is he’ll rush to the nearest none stealth target and try to use F2 on that random target, so thief can just easily approach me and land a backstab. Many times Ik thief is coming, and switch to wolf and press F2, my pet will just rush forward to thief’s previous stealth location and try to F2 there. This type of AI clearly affects my performance and greatly hinders ranger.

Seriously Anet, WE CAN CONTROL THE PET TO THE LOCATION WE WANT THEM TO USE THE SKILL. WE DON’T NEED YOU TO ADD THAT EXTRA AI THAT DECIDE WHEN PET IS GOING TO USE F2 FOR US! PLEASE JUST REMOVE THAT AI AND LET US JUST USE F2 EXACTLY WHEN WE WANT TO!

Agree that we need changes.
As ranger with 1,4k hours i can tell you that pet takes practice.
You can trigger your F2 at any point and they don’t have to run to target.

How to achieve this:
A .. you
B .. enemy
C .. pet

If C runs from A to B, you want to target pet, and F1.
Next step, you want to trigger your pet F2 when ever you want, and not when pet gets in range. In order to achieve this you have to (remove target) left click on ground to just remove target and follow by hitting F2 ASAP. This will trigger instant F2 spell casting ( if you use alpha wolf for fear, or hound to immobalize) .

If you don’t remove target, C will run from A to B till it’s in range, and try to use F2 then.

People underestimate rangers, but they don’t know how much skill does ranger take to go on pro level. Every ele mesmer warrior guard or engie can be decent, but to be decent ranger, is lots of effort.

Thanks for confirming.
Ranger is my first character, and I have around 2k hrs on my ranger.
I roam in WvW with my ranger alot, so this issue happens to me on a daily base.
Really tired of thief got his free backstab, or when I want my bear to remove crucial soft CC, my bear choose to run to the enemy and use his cleanse and I didn’t get within range. I now stop using bear completely because of this broken AI.

Aomine.5012, the best you can hope for is a Specialization that replaces the pet mechanic in the future.

thefantasticg.3984:

Aomine.5012, the best you can hope for is a Specialization that replaces the pet mechanic in the future.

According to the trailer, I’m afraid Druid will become a “pet buffing specialize” class…
In the trailer, that druid just shoot out something and the pet chase out to it, so I’m thinking it’d be more like a class that has close bond with the pet…

So I’m afraid we’ll become a true “pet class” post HoT, with this broken AI remaining after HoT launch… I can’t get my hope up. (Not to mention in WvW zerg fight pet is a complete liability)

Yeah, I wasn’t referring to the Druid spec… I was referring to future specializations in future expansions.

AI in GW2 is abysmal, and it’s sad that the ranger’s unique mechanic relies entirely on something so broken. I’m sure schedules at ANet are always tight with the expansion coming up, but it’s just appalling, the number of things that have obviously needed fixing since launch and still have yet to be addressed in any capacity that we know of.

I understand good AI is a difficult problem, and will take a lot of time for them to get right, but have they even commented on how this affects rangers in PvP?

ok again Aomine, your issue is that you have Autotarget on, and you want it off. Your pet will seek for nearby enemies even though you don’t target anyone.

To solve this you have to go “Game Menu” —-> “option” —-> “General Options” tab —-> “Combat/Movement” —-> and untick “Autotargeting” option.

Because I have test your issue and I think autotarget is the one that bothering you and it is exactly what causes things that happen to you.

ErickDntn.1847:

ok again Aomine, your issue is that you have Autotarget on, and you want it off. Your pet will seek for nearby enemies even though you don’t target anyone.

To solve this you have to go “Game Menu” —-> “option” —-> “General Options” tab —-> “Combat/Movement” —-> and untick “Autotargeting” option.

Because I have test your issue and I think autotarget is the one that bothering you and it is exactly what causes things that happen to you.

I always turn off auto-target when playing ranger because it’ll mess up my GS3 leap.
Also, like I said, it happened most often in WvW. It is not because of auto-target I assure you.

Whilst we’re on the topic of Ranger’s pets, how about changing the ‘Hide Pet’ button to a simple ‘Pet On/Off’ toggle switch to prevent the pet from appearing if you take damage of any kind?