Guild Wars 2

Not sure if it’s been said but are druids still stuck with pets in some manner? Because it’s the perfect chance to ditch them and I thought I heard them say every specialization gets new class skills?

All we know is the video had a pet standing next to a sylvari with a staff casting a vine and that ANet said Ranger’s will become Druids.

Beyond that, nada.

Yes unfortunately pets are still utilized in the druid class mechanic. This was stated in one of the recent PAX interviews with Anet (or I think at some fan-meet).

It would’ve been nice because it’s the only reason I can’t bring myself to play a Ranger :T but looks like we gotta wait for maybe the next specialization or something.

It has been confirmed that the pet will still be an integral part of the druid specialization.

One can only guess the difference between the “ranger pet” and the “animal companion” of the druid.
I expect there to be no pet switch for druids, to make the mechanics different in the first place, probably less control over the pet itself.
If the mechanic of druids and rangers are too similar, the druid will just feel like a ranger with staff.

Well that doesn’t fill me with a lot of hope. I understand the pets are BETTER then they were at launch but it doesn’t make them good or even decent. Their golden window to give rangers something else and they stick with pets …

I know we have no idea what exactly the mechanic is but I have to stay pessimistic for now given the history to this point. I hope I’m wrong. Love my ranger because I love nature based classes so of course druid is my auto go-to now. I’d rather just not have my kneecaps broken while I play it.

Imagine if it was a different type of pet. Something more similar to a following nature spirit. As in, it’s used to do more supportive things and not damage.

If that were true, and damage on weapons as a druid were scaled up to compensate, that would be closer to what some people have been suggesting.

Loxsus, sometimes Anet take big risks and change things drastically, other times they take a small risk with small changes. We have no idea what extent specializations change the current classes, so we can only guess from what we’re given and yes the Ranger still utilizing the pet doesn’t make it seem like a big change but we just have to wait until more information is out.

Who knows it could be like DarkWasp stated. Although I don’t want to shoot this theory down but in the trailer it shows the pet charging forward in the same direction as the enemy :T so I doubt it will be following us like a nature spirit and just providing support.

Wasted opportunities here. It pains me when a thief takes your pet hostage for free cloak and daggers and you can’t even tell it to stay put somewhere far away because that in itself is a utlity. Druids making use of pets still is the very reason I’m not too interested in the ranger specialization.

Monoman.2068:

Wasted opportunities here. It pains me when a thief takes your pet hostage for free cloak and daggers and you can’t even tell it to stay put somewhere far away because that in itself is a utlity. Druids making use of pets still is the very reason I’m not too interested in the ranger specialization.

Pets are a reason a lot of people stay away from them that I’ve seen. The fact that druid was their perfect window to do something else and see it thrown away just makes me sad. And it may turn out to be a wonderful thing, who knows. But all we have to go on is history and currently, it’s not in Anet’s favor.

If the pets do minimal damage and are mostly just extra utility of some sort, it would be something at least. But rangers having SO MUCH of their damage baked into an AI like theirs is a weak spot for the class. Hopefully the druids won’t be so reliant.

Yes, they did confirm in some interviews that the pet is still part of the druid. They did say overall mechanics are changing, but didn’t say if or how this would affect the pet.

More specializations will come in the future so who knows.. It might be that a future ranger specialization actually removes the pet. However at the same time it seems quite obvious that to Anet ranger = pet so.. We’ll see.

Personally I don’t mind. The very reason why I play a ranger is so I can play a beastmaster. For my non-beastmaster needs there are 7, soon 8, other professions.

It would be sad that the only pet profession of the game suddenly lose it’s pet… Well whatever, there will be alway people wanting the “archer” archetype class to be the GW2 ranger. (Which he is not )

I like the idea ROM talked about on his stream, that a druid would be able to turn into an animal instead, like a bear or wolf. That would be ace.

I’d like to see the mechanic changed so that the player could control the pet while your character remains stealthed and stationary. Give each pet skills to use while the player controls it. They have done next to nothing to improve the pet since before the game came out. It plays almost entirely the same as when I played the demo at ComiCon before the game came out in 2011. It’s disappointing.

I may not agree with changes they say are too minimal to put resources towards but I understand. With the Ranger pets I don’t understand at all. it’s a profession we are talking about here and their absolute reluctance to change the way the pets work from the ground up is disheartening.

I suspect druid will turn out to be a pet buffing class….
Sigh…

I would look for a “marksmen” type class for rangers for a pet free class but more on the lines a pure ranges dmg class till then all specialization classes for ranger should have the pet doing something one way or another.

Maybe druid means identities exchange,ranger become a pet and pet pretend a ranger…like a Illusions you know

Gona laugh if the druid abilities summon more pets.

Schneider.8615:

I like the idea ROM talked about on his stream, that a druid would be able to turn into an animal instead, like a bear or wolf. That would be ace.

I agree.

I wish the Druid were able to shape shift into the pets the ranger has collected. It would make collecting pets as rangers still relevant for the druid (the more pets you collected, the more options you would have), it would fit the “nature mage” theme, and it would add a lot of options for the players without adding new animations, since the pets already have animations in the game.

I’m worried the poster above is right, and druids become just a pet buffing specialization.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

It has been confirmed that the pet will still be an integral part of the druid specialization.

One can only guess the difference between the “ranger pet” and the “animal companion” of the druid.
I expect there to be no pet switch for druids, to make the mechanics different in the first place, probably less control over the pet itself.
If the mechanic of druids and rangers are too similar, the druid will just feel like a ranger with staff.

The difference between “ranger pet” and an Animal Companion is that one is a fan nickname, the other is officially the defining feature of the Ranger profession and its profession mechanic. Arenanet have stood their ground against the people whining for Rangers that fight alone and I commend them for that. If you wanna fight alone, feel free to play Warrior.

There’s plenty of ways they could shake up the pet mechanics of the ranger and it’s likely they’ve tried several, but pet with better AI (will not let itself get hit when told to avoid combat, that’s all I want) and the Druid’s primary differences lying in its utilities and traits I’d be happy with.

I am fairly certain druid was meant as descriptive speech for the type of skills the ranger will cast using a staff. Specilizations are just a new weapon afterall. Not like your getting completely new class skills or elite skills unless i have missed domething in the info released eo far.

It makes sense that a druid would have an animal companion. It really depends on how different the mechanic is from the one currently used by the ranger.

My hope is the mechanic involves some kind of spirit bonding or linking between the druid and its companion – and that the nature of that bond differs based on the class of animal you have slotted (bird, canine, feline, spider, bear, etc).

Darsch.1705:

I am fairly certain druid was meant as descriptive speech for the type of skills the ranger will cast using a staff. Specilizations are just a new weapon afterall. Not like your getting completely new class skills or elite skills unless i have missed domething in the info released eo far.

They’ve said in interviews that each specialization will have a new class mechanic so it’s not just a new weapon and utility skills. They just apparently decided to keep the druids new mechanic involving pets.

And the REASON rangers want petless abilities isn’t because they hate pet class; it’s that they hate the bad AI attached to THIS game’s pets. They claim to have a new AI guy working on stuff but again, history has not been kind that we still have glaring problems this long after release.

Maybe if bear pets could equip longbows it wouldn’t be so bad?

Loxsus.3841:

Darsch.1705:

I am fairly certain druid was meant as descriptive speech for the type of skills the ranger will cast using a staff. Specilizations are just a new weapon afterall. Not like your getting completely new class skills or elite skills unless i have missed domething in the info released eo far.

They’ve said in interviews that each specialization will have a new class mechanic so it’s not just a new weapon and utility skills. They just apparently decided to keep the druids new mechanic involving pets.

And the REASON rangers want petless abilities isn’t because they hate pet class; it’s that they hate the bad AI attached to THIS game’s pets. They claim to have a new AI guy working on stuff but again, history has not been kind that we still have glaring problems this long after release.

Honestly it would not surprise me if the new class mechanics are like the mist resource of the revnant but with slightly diffrent implementation. It is exactly what the steam mechanic sounds like for engineers.

If there like the animal companion focused druids in NWN I could see some pretty big pet based spells. Only one pet (no pet swap) but have the ability to revive the pet in combat…enchant its fangs…give it bark skin and hte like.

they confirmed yes. I hope pets are reworked, buffed, and/or given a second active skill.

I doubt they will be willing to fundamentally rework the pet. the most I can hope for are two things:

- an additional pbaoe active skill (f3)
- 90% aoe resist in wvw

also, I can almost guarantee no shapeshifting. it’s not anet’s style, and they already poorly implemented this with the norn racials. I don’t think anet sees the druid as a shapeshifter, but instead as a forest magic “caster”. likely, we’ll get sustain, more cc’s and group utility.

The pet as a mechanic is way better then it was on start,
it’s more responsive,
doesn’t pull aggro anymore unless you command it to,
you can have it run with you on non aggressive the whole time choosing when to use it and just pressing f2 for its skill on your stack the f1 to attack.

People who cause bad pulls due to the pet running in when they want to pull are noobs.
Those who cannot think of pressing f3 to call back the pet doubly so. Hope they never buy a dog.
For ranger at present:
Since the precision seems to have dropped to 40% at Minor stats (used to be 50%) spotter traits is very welcome, with S/A it can do decent dmg, keep up poison to prevent heals,reflect missiles, has a practical heal skill (AOE with condi remove and water field)
Pet can help providing a boon of choice. vulnerability through the LB and piercing arrows, opening shot(s) and whirling axe can be 32 stacks combined…. so manage it well.

Stow will work on invisibility skips.

I don’t know anything about Druids but I play a Ranger and love the pets! I use the black bird (crow?) and can stand back and just let him do most of my killing. Some of the cooler looking pets needs some buffs….

mistsim.2748:

they confirmed yes. I hope pets are reworked, buffed, and/or given a second active skill.

I doubt they will be willing to fundamentally rework the pet. the most I can hope for are two things:

- an additional pbaoe active skill (f3)
- 90% aoe resist in wvw

also, I can almost guarantee no shapeshifting. it’s not anet’s style, and they already poorly implemented this with the norn racials. I don’t think anet sees the druid as a shapeshifter, but instead as a forest magic “caster”. likely, we’ll get sustain, more cc’s and group utility.

Why only 90% aoe resist in wvw? In PvE too as well, and this should apply for ALL minions.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

The pet as a mechanic is way better then it was on start,
it’s more responsive,
doesn’t pull aggro anymore unless you command it to,
you can have it run with you on non aggressive the whole time choosing when to use it and just pressing f2 for its skill on your stack the f1 to attack.

People who cause bad pulls due to the pet running in when they want to pull are noobs.
Those who cannot think of pressing f3 to call back the pet doubly so. Hope they never buy a dog.
For ranger at present:
Since the precision seems to have dropped to 40% at Minor stats (used to be 50%) spotter traits is very welcome, with S/A it can do decent dmg, keep up poison to prevent heals,reflect missiles, has a practical heal skill (AOE with condi remove and water field)
Pet can help providing a boon of choice. vulnerability through the LB and piercing arrows, opening shot(s) and whirling axe can be 32 stacks combined…. so manage it well.

Stow will work on invisibility skips.

Nope nope. Pet’s damage had been cut to about 1/3 of what it used to, from 3~10k hard hitting monster to 1k~2k damage wimp. F2 responsiveness is still horrible when it comes to PBAOE pet. (They refuse to use F2 on the spot I ask them to if there’s a target far away, while I know there’s an invisible thief around me and need my wolf to use F2 immediate before he backstab me…)

Yeah there have been some quality changes like pets not aggroing which is nice but they still feel sloppy responsive wise and can’t keep up with moving targets very well in spvp. It has a long way to go ….

Blaeys.3102:

It makes sense that a druid would have an animal companion. It really depends on how different the mechanic is from the one currently used by the ranger.

My hope is the mechanic involves some kind of spirit bonding or linking between the druid and its companion – and that the nature of that bond differs based on the class of animal you have slotted (bird, canine, feline, spider, bear, etc).

Why would a Druid (outside of D&D 3E) have an animal companion? I’m looking at the Druid info on Guild Wars and GW2 wiki sites and don’t see any animal connection. There’s evidently a sylvari connection, but nothing about animals.

Why would a nature mage of any type be called a druid? outside of the source of the druid original context in history.

The connections about the same strength wise. And were calling it an animal companion becuase we KNOW the druid will still have a pet. asking why it has a pet doesnt matter. only the implementation in which its used. and the animal companion of the D&D style games was better than most others in that case

Dadnir.5038:

It would be sad that the only pet profession of the game suddenly lose it’s pet… Well whatever, there will be alway people wanting the “archer” archetype class to be the GW2 ranger. (Which he is not )

Some of us just want the GW2 ranger to be more like the GW1 ranger, which generally never had pet out. Generally didn’t use bows either… think mine spent more time holding daggers or a staff, and I hear hammer was also popular. Bows were for my barrage assassin. Even now, most rangers are about swords.

And necro and arguably mesmer are also pet classes.

HotHit.6783:

The difference between “ranger pet” and an Animal Companion is that one is a fan nickname, the other is officially the defining feature of the Ranger profession and its profession mechanic. Arenanet have stood their ground against the people whining for Rangers that fight alone and I commend them for that. If you wanna fight alone, feel free to play Warrior.

There’s plenty of ways they could shake up the pet mechanics of the ranger and it’s likely they’ve tried several, but pet with better AI (will not let itself get hit when told to avoid combat, that’s all I want) and the Druid’s primary differences lying in its utilities and traits I’d be happy with.

Warrior doesn’t fit the archer archetype, nor the GW1 ranger playstyle. Besides, maybe if they hadn’t screwed up so many basic design aspects, I wouldn’t mind being a pet class. As it stands, however, pets have problems which hit the very core of their mechanic. It seems to me that ArenaNet isn’t trying to make a place in GW2 for people who favored bow rangers in GW1, and it all starts with the pet mechanic.

You shouldn’t design a whole combat system around dodging from the ground up, then split a good third of a particular class’s damage and utility onto an NPC that can’t use that mechanic, and wouldn’t be intelligent enough to use it effectively even if it did have access to it. This also becomes a problem in PvP (and WvW), where pets either go down in a few hits and lose the ranger considerable damage and utility/cc, or the balance team can instead make pets tougher to take down and cause shutdown to be 30% less effective against the ranger. Or, pets’ inability to move while attacking can make it nearly impossible for a melee pet to even land a hit against a moving foe.

ArenaNet made timing and placement of your cc, fields, and finishers an extremely important part of the game, and then took control of those mechanics (tail swipe, spider poison field, pet leaps) out of the ranger’s hands both in location and timing.

In addition to this, there is another problem assailing bow rangers: the fact that range in this game is often weak in general without numerous cc and self defense options or the ability to work effectively at short range, neither of which the ranger longbow has. On the other side, we have melee professions with stability, easy condition cleanse, dodges, blocks, reflects, retaliation, leaps and teleporting/shadow stepping. Then, there is the short range of shared buffs which, in PvE, force rangers to be close to their team to receive these buffs. This has the side effect of reducing their auto attack damage, which brings me to my next point.

The ranger longbow is a passive weapon. When the game came out, its best damage per second at long range, assuming the enemy had a full stack of vulnerability already (as in a boss fight, for example), is mindless auto attack spam. Even warrior rifles and mesmer greatswords have more variety than this, to say nothing of the elementalist’s staff. And then, as I mentioned, you have an auto attack which punishes you for being at medium range or shorter, preventing ranger’s from having both full basic damage per second and sharing the team’s buffs. Being forced to choose between these two options, or else run a melee build, is getting frustrating.

Add to all of this the painful lack of blast finishers and fields, cc and strong team support, and you get a class that really doesn’t do what it is supposed to do, and certainly alienates many of the ranger players from the first game. While they have made notable strides in improving the pet system, and I commend them for that, it doesn’t change the fact that the pet system as a whole does not support or align with the design philosophy of the game as a whole.

One more point to mention: while necromancers and mesmers do indeed make use of NPC companions (of a sort), these are either completely optional (as with the necro) or mostly expendable (or both). If you lose a couple of illusions to ‘dodge or die’ mechanics because they lack a dodge, you aren’t locked out of your class mechanic entirely for a whole minute. I can’t say that I’ve played mesmer all that much, but I do remember being better able to control when and where phantasmal berserker’s first whirl hits much more effectively than I’ve ever been able to take advantage of a drake’s tail swipe.

^ Great post illustrating everything that is wrong with Rangers in GW2. I am dreading being stuck with the pet when it comes time to spec Druid, and the sheer boredom of the longbow is just sad.

I think its well past time I rolled a class that wasn’t saddled with terrible mechanics but I hate the thought of grinding another character to 80.

Put simpler, most of the weapons are balanced to consider “Pet DPS” (cue laughter). It makes the balance much more complex if they have to refactor the weapons.

That being said, I remember reading that pet dps is supposed to be 15-20% of your damage (could be remembering wrong). I wouldn’t mind Druids getting a buff that said “your longbow,sword,greatsword,shortbow,axe,warhorn, and torch get a 15% increase to damage” and losing the pet

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Warrior doesn’t fit the archer archetype, nor the GW1 ranger playstyle. Besides, maybe if they hadn’t screwed up so many basic design aspects, I wouldn’t mind being a pet class. As it stands, however, pets have problems which hit the very core of their mechanic. It seems to me that ArenaNet isn’t trying to make a place in GW2 for people who favored bow rangers in GW1, and it all starts with the pet mechanic.

Well first off, I think archer, as an achetype, isn’t supported in GW2 because anyone with a kitten bow is an archer! Now if you want a bow, there are multiple classes that use one. If you want to use only a bow, I think Arenanet IS trying to make a place for you guys in GW2 thanks to the specialization system. I hope to kitten they finally introduce a short/longbow to Elementalist so I can be a real arcane archer! In the meantime, Guardians might well be the place to go next.

Contrary to your stance, Ranger isn’t the pure archer type either unless you ignore a bunch about what makes them a GW2 Ranger, i.e. the spirits, nature magic, pet and that they are survivors (kitten hard to kill) where as archers tend to be glass.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

You shouldn’t design a whole combat system around dodging from the ground up, then split a good third of a particular class’s damage and utility onto an NPC that can’t use that mechanic, and wouldn’t be intelligent enough to use it effectively even if it did have access to it. This also becomes a problem in PvP (and WvW), where pets either go down in a few hits and lose the ranger considerable damage and utility/cc, or the balance team can instead make pets tougher to take down and cause shutdown to be 30% less effective against the ranger. Or, pets’ inability to move while attacking can make it nearly impossible for a melee pet to even land a hit against a moving foe.

In PvE, Ranger pets serve as an activation multiplier. It’s akin to Thief exploiting their initiative to use a skill back-to-back and is literally giving you extra activations to either combo, stack with or exploit by relying on them instead. This is just what they’re there for for every pet profession and help a ton as a distraction.

In PvP and WvW, they work well as a distraction as well as a secondary source of support. You can outsource your build to the pets to gain more pressure, be it CC, conditions or burst. How you utilize that is up to you. Yeah, sure a pet isn’t going to pull you through a zerg or getting focused down by a coordinated burst, but there isn’t a lot that will on any profession. You’re expecting miracles. Curb your expectations.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

ArenaNet made timing and placement of your cc, fields, and finishers an extremely important part of the game, and then took control of those mechanics (tail swipe, spider poison field, pet leaps) out of the ranger’s hands both in location and timing.

lol the game aint that serious, bro

Seriously, I think you’re piling on way too much blame onto pets. Even without your pet, a Ranger isn’t knee-capped and can function without. Even if it’s not to full capacity (which I’m still not going to fully agree with…Ranger is, like, the only profession that can deck themselves out in defensive gear and still do good damage, or aim for full on support yet still push out DPS thanks to their pet which can make a roaming Ranger with a boat load of sustain a difficult target to bring and keep down) it’s more than good enough to get by in PvE in a lot of circumstances. The AI could use some work but even that is (much more for Rangers) manageable.

This is a shame. Druid specialization without pets would’ve been amazing.

Although unlikely, it is still possible for druid to be petless. There’s a ton of ideas out there and it wouldn’t be surprising for them to be toying with several iterations of each spec. Yeah, we caught a glimpse of a druid with a pet, but that doesn’t mean it’ll make the final cut. Here’s to hoping anyway.

So, what if …

Instead of swapping to a second pet, the Druid and his pet meld. It wouldn’t be a full weapon set swap, but rather alter their profession skills (F1-F3), with F4 splitting the Ranger and pet apart again. The profession skills could be based on the family of the pet that was equipped, perhaps even one being a Ranger counterpart to that pet’s species specific skill.

I don’t think we know how traits, trait lines, and trait line attributes will change with any specialization yet, but if they are kept much the same then any points in the Beast Mastery equivalent (healing power and Pet Attribute Bonus) could award the Druid the Pet Attribute Bonus while melded.

Just a fun thought that came to mind and figured I would share.

Allarius.5670:

So, what if …

Instead of swapping to a second pet, the Druid and his pet meld. It wouldn’t be a full weapon set swap, but rather alter their profession skills (F1-F3), with F4 splitting the Ranger and pet apart again. The profession skills could be based on the family of the pet that was equipped, perhaps even one being a Ranger counterpart to that pet’s species specific skill.

I don’t think we know how traits, trait lines, and trait line attributes will change with any specialization yet, but if they are kept much the same then any points in the Beast Mastery equivalent (healing power and Pet Attribute Bonus) could award the Druid the Pet Attribute Bonus while melded.

Just a fun thought that came to mind and figured I would share.

Or, ya know… no pets at all and animal kits~

Ranger’s aren’t even balanced with pets in mind. Ranger autoattacks do virtually 30-40% less damage than regular classes yet the pet doesn’t even come close to making up for that gap.

Only the longbow on the ranger appears to do damage on par with other classes’ ranged weapons, but that is not the case for his melee weapons.

Maul is pathetic compared to backstab or 100b or whirling wrath, and a cat critting for 1.6k autoattacks isn’t going to make up for that.

They call them Druids but in the end is just a ranger with a staff lol

I don’t mind pets still being an active part of a Druid; but I could really appreciate being able to tame some Druid-like pets, such as Oakhearts and/or Arboreal Spirits. I just need mo’ Treants!

Thieves will have the rifle so i think lot of rangers will change to the new sniper thing. 100% less pet, 300% more invisibility. I already have the books to lvl up a thief

McWolfy.5924:

Thieves will have the rifle so i think lot of rangers will change to the new sniper thing. 100% less pet, 300% more invisibility. I already have the books to lvl up a thief

If this is true then Rangers will become utterly useless in all situations. Sad, sad day. I might have to stock up on skill books myself.

I hope they will keep their pet – or that very thing (removal of pet) will break the specialization for me.

They can’t really remove pets for the same reason they can’t remove (but can alter) shatter for mesmers, initiative for thieves, adrenaline for warriors etc. All professions have traits spread across all traitlines affecting their profession mechanic.

They would have to redesign nearly all traits, which they most likely won’t do. So specializations will probably alter profession mechanics, but the core will stay the same.