Guild Wars 2

Petting zoos in solo queues and team queues as far as the eye can see.

How have you dealt with all of the lovely pets (that are def under powered and need to be buffed up more with reduced cooldowns)?

How can anyone have any fun playing these builds?
Stand in point.
Let minions do work.
???
Profit.

I kinda agree. I like that mesmers have found a new build for themselves and so have necro’s, but in casual hotjoin matches which kinda predict where the newer comers are heading warrior is a thing of the past. In each 8 vs 8 I played mesmers featured by far and away the most and necro second. PU on the mesmer/ MM on the necro. The screen pollution is just far too much, not to mention all the rabbit finishers everywhere.

Skynet has taken over anet. There is no need to play the game anymore, the AI will do it for you.

AI is the meta in hotjoins/Solo Q , but team Q its different . But agree the AI is just too much

Chicago Jack.5647:

Skynet has taken over anet. There is no need to play the game anymore, the AI will do it for you.

This is just the beginning:

next patch, warriors are being taken over by Healing Signets, who will achieve a conscience on their own and will rebel against their owner to set forth and dominate the pvp scene by themselves.

oh the QQ pvp community evryday theres a new thread about something either skyhammer or builds, you dont like it stop playing but please stop QQing here.

It’s all related to condition/bunker spam and the lack of viable burst/power options imo. I honestly have nothing against people who play pet classes. Sure ANet could have done things better. For example:

Remove all the Ranger’s spirits and simply make the various spirit buffs auras on their standard pet. This way you can easily counter them by taking out the Ranger’s pet. Spirits are already useless in WvW so they won’t care. PvE nothing would change other than not needing trait points to make spirits viable.

Mesmer clones could do with a 10-15% hp reduciton so classes without easy access to AE weren’t so easily dominated.

Necro armies I don’t mind so much.

But none of these builds would be nearly as viable as they are now if condi/bunker wasn’t the only viable way to play.

Lord Hammer Hand.4815:

oh the QQ pvp community evryday theres a new thread about something either skyhammer or builds, you dont like it stop playing but please stop QQing here.

“stop playing” is exactly what most people went for

I don’t think it’s that bad as you describe it. Every 2-3 matches I see a mm necro or spirit ranger. I think that’s nothing compared to seeing bunker guardian or whatever op warrior build every match. Also there is nothing wrong with AI. It makes the game more interesting, more diverse. I like it.

If I wanted to fight AIs, I would’ve went to PvE ages ago, petting zoos suck IMO, MM necromancers and spirit rangers kitten me off.

pls stop saying that spirit ranger is an AI build. spirits do not attack players. spirits are just like moving signets. it takes more than auto-attacking to play this build well.

Valentin.2073:

pls stop saying that spirit ranger is an AI build. spirits do not attack players. spirits are just like moving signets. it takes more than auto-attacking to play this build well.

Well, not really. If said Spirit Ranger is using SB then they its just passive auto attack spamming with the occasional 2 and 4 button press. So, no not much skill. If said Spirit Ranger is all melee, then yeah a little more skill and timing involved with the built in evades through many of the melee attacks.

Of course, in the end, just about all Spirit Rangers are maximizing defense and condi damage, which, in the end, is passive damage, so, apply condi and kite…again, no skill.

Regardless, that’s the meta we play in.

Valentin.2073:

pls stop saying that spirit ranger is an AI build. spirits do not attack players. spirits are just like moving signets. it takes more than auto-attacking to play this build well.

Nice one! I spit my coffee all over my desk. You’re such a funny guy.

Hamish.1384:

Valentin.2073:

pls stop saying that spirit ranger is an AI build. spirits do not attack players. spirits are just like moving signets. it takes more than auto-attacking to play this build well.

Well, not really. If said Spirit Ranger is using SB then they its just passive auto attack spamming with the occasional 2 and 4 button press. So, no not much skill. If said Spirit Ranger is all melee, then yeah a little more skill and timing involved with the built in evades through many of the melee attacks.

Of course, in the end, just about all Spirit Rangers are maximizing defense and condi damage, which, in the end, is passive damage, so, apply condi and kite…again, no skill.

Regardless, that’s the meta we play in.

a ranger needs to flank to stack bleed that’s why rangers tend to evade a lot when you’re fighting them 1v1. flanking takes skill and it takes time to master it.

Valentin.2073:

Hamish.1384:

Valentin.2073:

pls stop saying that spirit ranger is an AI build. spirits do not attack players. spirits are just like moving signets. it takes more than auto-attacking to play this build well.

Well, not really. If said Spirit Ranger is using SB then they its just passive auto attack spamming with the occasional 2 and 4 button press. So, no not much skill. If said Spirit Ranger is all melee, then yeah a little more skill and timing involved with the built in evades through many of the melee attacks.

Of course, in the end, just about all Spirit Rangers are maximizing defense and condi damage, which, in the end, is passive damage, so, apply condi and kite…again, no skill.

Regardless, that’s the meta we play in.

a ranger needs to flank to stack bleed that’s why rangers tend to evade a lot when you’re fighting them 1v1. flanking takes skill and it takes time to master it.

The flanking requirements are so generous of is harder not to cause bleed then it is to do so

just stop classifying spirit ranger as an ai build because spirits do not attack players. it might be a passive build but it’s definitely not an ai build. mesmers (PU and phantasm) and MM’s, these are ai builds.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

I kinda agree. I like that mesmers have found a new build for themselves and so have necro’s, but in casual hotjoin matches which kinda predict where the newer comers are heading warrior is a thing of the past. In each 8 vs 8 I played mesmers featured by far and away the most and necro second. PU on the mesmer/ MM on the necro. The screen pollution is just far too much, not to mention all the rabbit finishers everywhere.

there is a difference though. mm necro, those minions cc u and are tough to take down. a mesmer clone needs 1 hit and poof. 1 aoe and all minions and mostlikely the phantasms are gone. a pu mesmer is not that good in tpvp because we acant hold a point for kitten. i use a pu power hybrid build and it is the only way to escape the perma stuns and perma fears and perma immobilize and perma cripples and all that. the best way to cleanse condis too, but in terms of holding a point…. terrible!a mm necro is a pain though i agree with u and so are certain engi builds that hide behind their turrets.
but honestly if my class wa reworked i wouldnt mind getting rid of clones and phantasms if i would get some viable aoe instead!

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Petting zoo was a direct response to hambows.

if you didn’t want to push the meta to passive builds, you shouldn’t’ve abused the stunlock meta all summer.

but hambow is a direct counter to petting zoo… it is all aoe damage

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Petting zoo was a direct response to hambows.

if you didn’t want to push the meta to passive builds, you shouldn’t’ve abused the stunlock meta all summer.

Wasn’t it the other way around? Weren’t spirit rangers the meta before stun spam even caught on? Hammers in particular only caught on because of all the AE spam that wiped out the pets which made Warrior spam the only counter to Ranger spam. The Hambow I thought was relatively new because people reverted back to the condi>*?

Valentin.2073:

just stop classifying spirit ranger as an ai build because spirits do not attack players. it might be a passive build but it’s definitely not an ai build. mesmers (PU and phantasm) and MM’s, these are ai builds.

it is an AI build.
its AI clutter attacking your enemy with RANDOM procs + give RANDOM your team Boons. Seriously. Just cause this mobs follow you and not your enemy its no AI mob?

it has to be removed from game same like mm necro – this game dont need this

Romek.4201:

Valentin.2073:

just stop classifying spirit ranger as an ai build because spirits do not attack players. it might be a passive build but it’s definitely not an ai build. mesmers (PU and phantasm) and MM’s, these are ai builds.

it is an AI build.
its AI clutter attacking your enemy with RANDOM procs + give RANDOM your team Boons. Seriously. Just cause this mobs follow you and not your enemy its no AI mob?

it has to be removed from game same like mm necro – this game dont need this

Would you call a Bard in other MMO’s an AI build? It’s the same thing… passive auras giving bonuses to those around it.

Personally, I wouldn’t.

As the others have said, the Ranger is just an incredibly boring class to play. It’s not even that overly passive. The issue is none of their weapon skills are that remarkable. Many are ’it’s off cooldown, use it’ type skills. When all but 3 skills out of every weapon for a class do less damage than your auto attack, there’s little reason to use them. When the vast majority of those skills only do something silly like spread poison with a duration longer than the cooldown or cripple, there’s no reason not to use them when they’re off cooldown.

the problem is not about what this mobs can do its about they are more mobs on screen/battlefield than needed

and gw2 has big problem with clutter on screen in teamfights and it dont need much more mobs/targets jsut to bring some passive bull… for his owner

i dont care when give the ranger some boons or whatever is needed but the ranger pet should be the only pet he have

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Petting zoo was a direct response to hambows.

if you didn’t want to push the meta to passive builds, you shouldn’t’ve abused the stunlock meta all summer.

False, hambow was counter to the Spirit Rangers. Do you even play this game?

last days i found new abomination to add to the list of ai crap:
venom share thief using devourer venom + thief guild + ambush trap and yes, venom share includes pets and yes all pets stack immob on you… xD

It really became annoying as hell. Nearly every ranger plays spirit build, every necro plays minion build, every mesmer plays clone spam build… Sometimes I feel like I’m playing wvw instead of tpvp when I see such crowd. It’s because anet nerfs every other viable and useful build, then ppl starts to use pet spam builds. With these, I can’t see build variety in tpvp as well. Every warrior plays hambow, every thief plays evade spamming/stealth spamming one button builds etc. Then why are there different traits and utilities if everyone is going to play the same build ? I think, this is what’s wrong with gw2 spvp/tpvp currently. “Meta” mustn’t exist in the game.

SonofNoob.3102:

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Petting zoo was a direct response to hambows.

if you didn’t want to push the meta to passive builds, you shouldn’t’ve abused the stunlock meta all summer.

False, hambow was counter to the Spirit Rangers. Do you even play this game?

But I think PU mesmers counter hambows. Spirit Rangers are the thing of the past. I’m seeing a lot more mesmers (and necros) in hotjoins than Sprangers and I’m thinking spirits are way less clutter than a bajillion clones appearing and exploding non-stop here and there.

Remove aoe cap in PvP.

Mightymealworm.8409:

Remove aoe cap in PvP.

This. This is what we need.

Cynz.9437:

last days i found new abomination to add to the list of ai crap:
venom share thief using devourer venom + thief guild + ambush trap and yes, venom share includes pets and yes all pets stack immob on you… xD

Thieves guild is on a 180s cd though, and only lasts 30s. So it’s over in 1 fight, and then they’ll be out of serious combat for 2 more minutes. I tried this myself back before the new healing skill update. It’s far better to bring basilisk venom to the game, and share that with your allies.

People shouldn’t complain about petting zoos, they should be complaining about the way popular builds were nerfed to the point that this was the most viable option left to those classes. There’s too much nerfing going around, and not enough of making other builds viable. The build diversity for my class is just extremely poor. I play a necromancer, and now that condition-builds got struck with the nerf hammer, it’s either MM, or a Power build. I wish we had more alternatives, instead of our only options being hammered into the ground with the nerf bat.

i dont mind petting/minion zoos at all in tpvp, but thats cuz ive been playing a gs/hammer medi guard. spirits and minions usually die in the first third of the fight as collateral damage. this build also hardcounters shatter, and phantasms mesmers to an extent.

have u guys thought about bringing more aoe to the fights to counter the mesmer, necro and ranger spamfests? u might be surprised with the results.

zachzak.3185:

Mightymealworm.8409:

Remove aoe cap in PvP.

This. This is what we need.

Yeah I’ma QFT this as well. If minions are still going to meatshield every projectile attack, at least let AoEs hit them all - quite often I’m chucking down my fields and hoping that the damage is done to... whoever’s the biggest threat.

Not sure if AoE always targets players first (in the same manner as tab-targeting now does), but even if your skills are guaranteed to hit the enemy players... mesmer clones presumably still count towards the cap, so two mesmers can easily outnumber any AoE effect. Whether or not players are prioritised, it’s rather difficult to take down any important AI unit (flesh golem or spirit of nature, particularly) due to the daft numbers of other targets that can absorb the hits.

Pet builds are obviously ridiculous, especially when combined with the aoe cap and the fact that they can intercept ranged abilities. The problem is that this goes way back to when anet was buffing engi turrets. Everyone was like wtf? why would you ever want to encourage that kind of thing in pvp? And the devs responded saying they wanted to provide simple builds for less skilled players.

Unfortunately, simple gameplay for unskilled players is the pvp devs guiding goal. The pvp devs don’t want to make the game challenging or punishing, they want everything to be extremely simple and easy so that there isn’t much of a gap between mediocre players and good players. They believe doing so will bring in the casuals and finally get them the numbers they are lacking.

Considering they’ve been running the game into the ground for well over a year now and the numbers are still pathetic, you’d think maybe they’d change tact and look at other games which actually had successful pvp and notice that they all had intensely high skill caps and didn’t encourage skilless builds.

Sadly, this is arenanet, and the pvp devs don’t give a kitten about anything because they have a free ride from pve. If the bosses at anet actually fired a pvp dev or two and made it clear that results mattered, we’d have a significantly better game. As long as these horrendously apathetic and incompetent pvp devs are rewarded for achieving nothing, the game is not going to improve because they have no incentive to put any effort into their work.

As a thief the easiest way I’ve found to deal with Pet builds is to cancel target aim towards the mob of red press tab and it will auto target the player.

Next is DPS the player down. Use survivability in between as necessary.

I would imagine AoE would be pretty solid too. Seems like a DPS guardian with a Greatsword/Sword+Focus would have it especially easy with all the blocks and AoE blinds available.

Numerous warrior setups should be able to take out a pet build. AoE or Player spike tactics would viable for warriors.

I’m not sure what I’d do with other classes, but I’m sure someone could give other ideas.

Gwalchgwn.1659:

Cynz.9437:

last days i found new abomination to add to the list of ai crap:
venom share thief using devourer venom + thief guild + ambush trap and yes, venom share includes pets and yes all pets stack immob on you… xD

Thieves guild is on a 180s cd though, and only lasts 30s. So it’s over in 1 fight, and then they’ll be out of serious combat for 2 more minutes. I tried this myself back before the new healing skill update. It’s far better to bring basilisk venom to the game, and share that with your allies.

oh i didn’t say it was OP, actually it is relative easy to deal with if you know how thief works but seeing that even some thieves try to run ai build made me go /facepalm

And yet, Spirit Weapon Guardians still suck…

i saw some guy using the spirit bow tonight…looked really cool

let petkills count for stacksigils and everyone is happy^^

oh and petkills should count too for the points – give 1 point per kill

Melee aoe against pets is not as good as you think. You will still miss targets due to aoe cap, summoner will evade and lock you down so pets will just feed off you because you are knee deep in them. And even when you destroy a pet it often has bad side effects and another one spawns to take its place. And if someone nearby has retaliation, kiss your kitten goodbye.

Mightymealworm.8409:

Melee aoe against pets is not as good as you think. You will still miss targets due to aoe cap, summoner will evade and lock you down so pets will just feed off you because you are knee deep in them. And even when you destroy a pet it often has bad side effects and another one spawns to take its place. And if someone nearby has retaliation, kiss your kitten goodbye.

Yeah AOE cap + invulnerable/blocking/dodging counting towards that cap makes meleeing pet classes extremely frustrating. I can be clearly in front of that MM necro and cast my melee aoe at him yet not hit him because his 5 minions soak up the attack although they weren’t even targeted.

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

Yeah AOE cap + invulnerable/blocking/dodging counting towards that cap makes meleeing pet classes extremely frustrating. I can be clearly in front of that MM necro and cast my melee aoe at him yet not hit him because his 5 minions soak up the attack although they weren’t even targeted.

If you have him selected you will always hit him with aoe. The selected target always had the priority.

Rezz.8019:

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

Yeah AOE cap + invulnerable/blocking/dodging counting towards that cap makes meleeing pet classes extremely frustrating. I can be clearly in front of that MM necro and cast my melee aoe at him yet not hit him because his 5 minions soak up the attack although they weren’t even targeted.

If you have him selected you will always hit him with aoe. The selected target always had the priority.

Why should I have to select targets with skillshots?

dropped in a match yesterday, the enemy team no lie had a mesmer, spirit ranger, and minion necro…got jumped by all three…that’s like a 1v17 lol O_o

The only AI build that’s a mindless build is spirit ranger (I should know, rangers my main…) I’ve played turrets, phantasms, MM, you name it and they all gotta CC and other such to help the minions bring down their enemy. They also don really provide “support” sure they all have control, but that’s about it.

Spirit builds are literally spam auto in the middle of a team fight and profit because your minions buff you that much….

And then you bring the two together and have the magic of spirit powered minions…GG

Atherakhia.4086:

Wasn’t it the other way around? Weren’t spirit rangers the meta before stun spam even caught on? Hammers in particular only caught on because of all the AE spam that wiped out the pets which made Warrior spam the only counter to Ranger spam. The Hambow I thought was relatively new because people reverted back to the condi>*?

yes, thats how it was. when car crash won championship, in victory interview they (im forgetting captains name) pointed to warrior f1 as their counter to spirit ranger (ranger which was fotm). warrior became overnight hit.

Players should be able to rally off certain AI’s like the ranger’s normal pet and Necro’s flesh golem and or shade.

Marlafox.8715:

Players should be able to rally off certain AI’s like the ranger’s normal pet and Necro’s flesh golem and or shade.

Honestly this I think is the best and logical choice.

Let downed players rally off of the spirits/minions. Clones/phantasms have almost zero hp anyway and are easy to kill so no on them. Let us rally from pets/minions/spirits and give these blatantly OP pvp classes something to think about instead of mindlessly running around while their AI works for them.

Also remove the aoe cap.

As others have said, the easiest way to nerf them while keeping their power level high enough for newer players is to have certain on-kill sigils and traits work off them. I don’t think rallying should be an option (didn’t we use to have this with the Necro Jagged Horror?), and certain traits might be too strong to proc after minion or spirit death, but that can go on a case by case