Guild Wars 2

Ranger pets are ridiculously overpowered because they have an in-built maphack up their sleeve.

Most of the time the Ranger player is completely clueless of your current position but the mighty pet has an aggro range the size of Skyhammer AoE and easily gives away your position. It’s even more frustating when you get downed but manage to trick him and put yourself in a position he doesnt see you. The ranger doesnt care if you try to hide because his pet will find you and it will kill you

Eg. take a look at Forest of Nifhel’s Mine, you can hide inside the mine entrance.
Another example, Legacy of Foefire’s Quarry, you can hide behind the wall.

Most of the players don’t go check for people there and provides a nice little sneaky backcap neutralize, punishing players without map/situational awareness. Rangers are immune to this punishment. Is this really okay?

I hate it to, but isn’t that what a ranger pet is supposed to do? Its an animal, it will find you The ranger main special. Just like eles who can switch between 4 sets of 5 skills, or thief with stealth and etc.

I just think this is bad design. The player is getting rewarded for letting an AI do his job and the other guy is getting punished because he cleverly positioned himself not to be seen from the capture point.

The God of Passive Play is a Ranger.

And his wife is a Mesmur.

And they have a kid who loves Minions.

They also have relatives who take care of Elementals and wanted Thieves.

And finally, they own a pet called Rock Dog.

They disowned Spirit Weapons as part of their AI family because there are more than enough Spirits to take to Mickey Mouse’s Clubhouse.

Welcome to AI Wars 2.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

I just think this is bad design. The player is getting rewarded for letting an AI do his job and the other guy is getting punished because he cleverly positioned himself not to be seen from the capture point.

And I think that the cheesy ways thieves avoid getting stomped should never be in the first place … regardless what class I play. I simply love, that my pet can finish you guys off, but I would prefer if it didn’t have to … stealth, if anything, promotes AI and AoE imo.
In my book thieves are not as clever and rangers as dumb, as you make it sound. Horrible generalization imo. Imho the clever thief doesn’t get caught in the first place.

Only spvpers could complain that ranger pets are OP…

Victory.2879:

Only spvpers could complain that ranger pets are OP…

Welcome to the Spvp forums. Would you like some popcorn? I’ve almost finished all mine for the night, but I’m happy to go heat up some more using the rage of a thousand suns generated in all the ranger and necro threads here.

Victory.2879:

Only spvpers could complain that ranger pets are OP…

It’s the kittening PvP forums do you expect a topic about how they suck at PvE? Thanks for bumping the thread.

Who would have thought some <insert random default pet name> could sniff out a sweaty, stinkin’ Thief hiding behind the bushes? AI broken.

He would have to target you to send his pet on you anyway. Nerf targeting.

It doesnt need to be a Thief, and it doesnt need to be targetted. The pet has a really aggro bubble and obstacles mean squat to him, thats what we call AI maphack

The pets have a more strict leash range now so that solves the first issue. The second issue you have a giant red name on the screen so you’re not as well hidden as you may think and tab target will find you.

The pet follows normal AI pathing so if you have a path to you, the pet will find you. I doubt anyone is using Guard in sPvP so you’re not seeing the teleport action that you get in WvW (did they fix guard? I don’t even know…). If you’re stealthed the pet can’t find you. If you unstealth, since stealth isn’t an aggro drop in this game, the pet will resume chasing once you come out.

there’s no hacking involved here… the pet is following normal mob AI just like they do in every game out there. So short of removing the pet (which most rangers want to happen anyway) I don’t see what you want done about this? I highly doubt players run around with their pet on aggressive if that’s what you’re implying?

I’m saying its AI-maphack, its seen in almost every game, it’s not a hack. Tell me something why do you feel a clueless Ranger, with no map awareness, that would just capture the point the walk away, rightfully being punished by allowing me to neutralize it, should be rewarded because the AI does the searching for him, regardless of not being to actually see me?

Nerf ranger pets 35% more, make spirits have 5% chance to trigger, and make ranger regen 50% less. Keep conditions as is, but nerf ranger conditons by 75%. That’s all I see on this forum, nerf ranger, nerf ranger. They are to ezy to play. They should be a challenge like my spam thief!

Not enough nerf, that ranger downed me, pls nerf ranger more.

Seriously, if anything, Ranger needs buffs/re-works.

They need to nerf ranger so it only has 1 attack skill auto attack and remove all its other attack’s. And take away its condition remove.

Week after they do that you will see posts, nerf ranger there auto attack does damage. Take’s no skill to press there only skill its to passive quick nerf them more.

The problem is that their in-fight pathing is awkward at best and awful at worst. If they were better at following targets I ordered them to and landing skills without delays due to their AI not realizing whether or not they are in range, I would be fine with them not tracking people when their vision would otherwise be obscured. I still occasionally run into this problem where my pet is missing its target for no apparent reason, or where it attacks a location it thinks my opponent is when it’s really a few paces to the side.

Leuca.5732:

I still occasionally run into this problem where my pet is missing its target for no apparent reason, or where it attacks a location it thinks my opponent is when it’s really a few paces to the side.

I think the later is skill delay or lag. Ever seen an elementalist Fire Grab you from 900 yards?

Pets don’t aggro, they only attack players if the ranger attacked them first or told the pet to attack them. This is no different from Mesmer phantasms. They will follow you till kingdom come they don’t care if you strategically LoS the owner.

Is it rewarding non-skilled play. Yes. But, this is a softcore PvP game designed for newer PvPers and mmorpg players.

You can even say that this game has a smaller skill cap than most mmorpgs because in almost all mmorpgs I have played all skills require you to LoS the target (i.e the target cannot be behind you), this game does not have that restriction, a majority of skills will make you auto-turn even if the target is behind you.

Compare the skill level of an average player in a Hotjoin and an average player in a hardcore PvP game like LoL or SMITE. If you think this is a high skill cap game you are sorely mistaken.

I find it so weird to see this topic on here. I am mostly a PvE player but started dabbling in PvP recently, came here to find some builds for Ranger lol. In PvE pets are the most annoying thing to manage to not die lol.

I got into Platinum V in League Of Legends so I think Im fully aware of what a high skill cap game is. And Im pointing out that this current AI behaviour is not helping reward skillful play, but instead rewarding non-skilled play, just like you said.

I’m more annoyed that spirit rangers can use all their spirits as a meat shield.

But spirit rangers will suffer some tweaks after PAX.
This is a mechanical issue that won’t get resolved unless attention is brought to it.

I don’t want to see rangers nerfed to the ground. In fact, fixing this won’t affect a single thing inyour average gameplay while positively pushing the game into a more higher skill cap, where actually looking around your surroundings (situational awareness) is rewarding.

Letting an AI passively do the job for you is BAD DESIGN, unless the goal is to promote passive play, which I sincerely doubt that’s the direction ArenaNet wants to take.

TGSlasher.1458:

Leuca.5732:

I still occasionally run into this problem where my pet is missing its target for no apparent reason, or where it attacks a location it thinks my opponent is when it’s really a few paces to the side.

I think the later is skill delay or lag. Ever seen an elementalist Fire Grab you from 900 yards?

Nope. I’ve even had it happen on test golems, and after waiting for a period of time my pet was still attacking nothing instead of the stationary target.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

But spirit rangers will suffer some tweaks after PAX.
This is a mechanical issue that won’t get resolved unless attention is brought to it.

I don’t want to see rangers nerfed to the ground. In fact, fixing this won’t affect a single thing inyour average gameplay while positively pushing the game into a more higher skill cap, where actually looking around your surroundings (situational awareness) is rewarding.

Letting an AI passively do the job for you is BAD DESIGN, unless the goal is to promote passive play, which I sincerely doubt that’s the direction ArenaNet wants to take.

Relying on AI is bad design; a bad targeting system is perhaps worse in a game where targeted skills are so important. The fact that thieves/mesmers/spirit rangers etc capitalize on this bad targeting system is part of what makes them so frustrating at times.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

I’m saying its AI-maphack, its seen in almost every game, it’s not a hack. Tell me something why do you feel a clueless Ranger, with no map awareness, that would just capture the point the walk away, rightfully being punished by allowing me to neutralize it, should be rewarded because the AI does the searching for him, regardless of not being to actually see me?

Oh right we are going to complain about something that isn’t in the game. Sounds logical.

Conan.8046:

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

I’m saying its AI-maphack, its seen in almost every game, it’s not a hack. Tell me something why do you feel a clueless Ranger, with no map awareness, that would just capture the point the walk away, rightfully being punished by allowing me to neutralize it, should be rewarded because the AI does the searching for him, regardless of not being to actually see me?

Oh right we are going to complain about something that isn’t in the game. Sounds logical.

This actually does happen. The reason I don’t advocate removing it altogether is that since the ranger’s damage balancing is tied to their pet being present, the pet has to have some way of working with a terrible target system. That said, I think it would be safe to slightly decrease the leash length, and half the leash length again if the target stealths to flee and exit combat, so that the pet does not pick up a target so far away.

Just brainstorming here.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Letting an AI passively do the job for you is BAD DESIGN, unless the goal is to promote passive play, which I sincerely doubt that’s the direction ArenaNet wants to take.

What makes you say this? For god’s sake look how many traits there are that automatically cast abilities at certain HP thresholds or when certain criteria are met. Warriors get an auto stunbreak and stability when hit by a CC.

Take a hint.

Geff.1930:

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Letting an AI passively do the job for you is BAD DESIGN, unless the goal is to promote passive play, which I sincerely doubt that’s the direction ArenaNet wants to take.

What makes you say this? For god’s sake look how many traits there are that automatically cast abilities at certain HP thresholds or when certain criteria are met. Warriors get an auto stunbreak and stability when hit by a CC.

Take a hint.

Oh so you think passive gameplay is a thing that it’s okay and we should just accept it instead of making them see that’s not what we want?

Leuca.5732:

Conan.8046:

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

I’m saying its AI-maphack, its seen in almost every game, it’s not a hack. Tell me something why do you feel a clueless Ranger, with no map awareness, that would just capture the point the walk away, rightfully being punished by allowing me to neutralize it, should be rewarded because the AI does the searching for him, regardless of not being to actually see me?

Oh right we are going to complain about something that isn’t in the game. Sounds logical.

This actually does happen. The reason I don’t advocate removing it altogether is that since the ranger’s damage balancing is tied to their pet being present, the pet has to have some way of working with a terrible target system. That said, I think it would be safe to slightly decrease the leash length, and half the leash length again if the target stealths to flee and exit combat, so that the pet does not pick up a target so far away.

Just brainstorming here.

Link ability please.

Again, this is how a pet class works. I don’t think there’s anything you’re going to do about this. Short of them going back to making stealth break agro (or just allowing it to break in sPvP) the Pet will auto home back onto you if you’re still within 1200 yards of the Ranger. There’s nothing wrong with this. This is normal AI behavior.

Now as for the Ranger pet never hitting a moving target, again… normal AI behavior for this game. Go out in the real world and find some melee oriented champion. To kill said champion all you do is hold your back key, your strafe key, and attack. Doesn’t even need to be a ranged weapon. The strafe key rules all.

Now I haven’t a clue what you people want out of the pet? The F2 abilities suck for the most part because they’re so unreliable. Rangers have been begging for the F2 abilities to be redesigned. They’ve been begging to have control over the secondary attacks as well. But beyond that the pet will have to be automated in some fashion. Think of it as an interactive DOT that you can’t dispell and you’ll be much better off.

This isn’t about pet’s F2 abilities, this isn’t about pet’kittenting moving targets. Have you read the OP at all?

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

This isn’t about pet’s F2 abilities, this isn’t about pet’kittenting moving targets. Have you read the OP at all?

The OP is little more than nonsensical rambling which I said in my first post.

He’s expecting the pet to behave in a way that simply is impossible in this game. It’s not exploiting anything.

When players stealth, stealth isn’t an agro dump, so the pet doesn’t lose target. This is normal AI behavior.

When a player is on a hill, if another player can get to you, the pet can too. No one is using guard so I’m confident no one is exploiting the teleporting mechanic that is common in WvW.

The pet already has a 1200 yard leash range. So it isn’t chasing you down from the other side of the map as implied.

These are all normal AI behaviors and not something that’s ever going to change. Now as for the F2 abilities, I brought it up because people are all ‘the pet is all passive, the pet is OP and doesn’t need player input’. The simple point is that the pet doesn’t respond to player input half the time anyway.

Again, you can’t read apparently. No one in here as said that the pet is chasing you from the other side of the map.

What this is saying is that when you are out of sight of the ranger, and that player doesn’t even dream that you are there hidden, he gets rewarded for not knowing squat, because his pet finds the hidden player, passively. That isn’t encouraging active play. That is rewarding passive playing and clueless people that don’t have situational awareness. Meanwhile the people using the intricacies of the maps to their advantage are punished by a bad designed AI.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Again, you can’t read apparently. No one in here as said that the pet is chasing you from the other side of the map.

What this is saying is that when you are out of sight of the ranger, and that player doesn’t even dream that you are there hidden, he gets rewarded for not knowing squat, because his pet finds the hidden player, passively. That isn’t encouraging active play. That is rewarding passive playing and clueless people that don’t have situational awareness. Meanwhile the people using the intricacies of the maps to their advantage are punished by a bad designed AI.

And again, that’s not how the pet works. If set to aggressive, the pet will sit by your side and only attack things that attack it or you. While you may think you’re hidden, tab target has found you, your name was clipped through a wall etc etc. You were selected, the pet was told to attack.

I know I was not targetted because I especifically tested this with a ranger friend in an empty server. Otherwise I would just be making a fool out of myself.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

I know I was not targetted because I especifically tested this with a ranger friend in an empty server. Otherwise I would just be making a fool out of myself.

Then you attacked the ranger first and the pet tracked you down. Pet’s always stay by the ranger’s side unless they are attacked or told to attack. They don’t simply run around the map, looking for targets to attack on their own!

If you don’t believe me, roll a ranger and see for yourself.

Wombat.3510:

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

I know I was not targetted because I especifically tested this with a ranger friend in an empty server. Otherwise I would just be making a fool out of myself.

Than you attacked the ranger first and the pet tracked you down. Pet’s always stay by the ranger’s side unless they are attacked or told to attack. They don’t simply run around the map, looking for targets to attack on their own!

If you don’t believe me, roll a ranger and see for yourself.

Thats what i was saying all along!

roll a ranger and you will see that pets AI is pure shyt, in fact what this poor pet AI bring to ranger class is a BIG LOST OF DPS, a ranger only hit you with 70% of their real power because pets have the other 30%, and it is really easy to kite a pet.

OFC, if you stand while pet hit you ,you could die , but it is YOUR fault.

What the OP is saying (that I apparently understood better than a lot of people) goes something like this:

1. Ranger enters a skirmish with an opponent and uses f1 to make the pet attack before taking any other actions.

2. Ranger gives no orders that would make the pet change its target throughout the fight.

3. The ranger successfully drives off their attacker, who stealths at low health and goes to hide behind a wall. The opponent is NOT visible, but happens to be just inside the pet’s leash range.

4. The opponent is downed while in stealth due to some ticking effect (conditions, etc)

5. Opponent unstealths behind aforementioned wall. Since no conditions are still ticking after being downed, there is no visual indicator to the ranger that he/she is even there, yet the pet still tracks and follows when the Ranger has absolutely no other clues as to their opponent’s whereabouts.

This has nothing to do with pets’ otherwise bad AI; the OP is pointing out a specific function that would single-handedly make the Ranger OP if in theory all the professions were otherwise perfectly balanced.

Conan.8046:

Link ability please.

Not sure if you’re trolling here, but I’ll assume you aren’t. It’s not tied to a named ability. It was an adjustment to pet AI in some past patch that allowed them to better re-initiate on targets that were coming out of stealth. The problem is that there is (I’m guessing) not much room for distinction in the code when taking vastly different circumstances into account.

Leuca.5732:

What the OP is saying (that I apparently understood better than a lot of people) goes something like this:

1. Ranger enters a skirmish with an opponent and uses f1 to make the pet attack before taking any other actions.

2. Ranger gives no orders that would make the pet change its target throughout the fight.

3. The ranger successfully drives off their attacker, who stealths at low health and goes to hide behind a wall. The opponent is NOT visible, but happens to be just inside the pet’s leash range.

4. The opponent is downed while in stealth due to some ticking effect (conditions, etc)

5. Opponent unstealths behind aforementioned wall. Since no conditions are still ticking after being downed, there is no visual indicator to the ranger that he/she is even there, yet the pet still tracks and follows when the Ranger has absolutely no other clues as to their opponent’s whereabouts.

This has nothing to do with pets’ otherwise bad AI; the OP is pointing out a specific function that would single-handedly make the Ranger OP if in theory all the professions were otherwise perfectly balanced.

You really need to watch the discovery channel more, animals use there nose to smell. So doesn’t that mean this “thief” never shower’s. Tbh it’s his own fault, shower at least once a day and your chances will become better.

Sol.4310:

You really need to watch the discovery channel more, animals use there nose to smell. So doesn’t that mean this “thief” never shower’s. Tbh it’s his own fault, shower at least once a day and your chances will become better.

I didn’t know birds had a great sense of smell.

Leuca.5732:

What the OP is saying (that I apparently understood better than a lot of people) goes something like this:

1. Ranger enters a skirmish with an opponent and uses f1 to make the pet attack before taking any other actions.

2. Ranger gives no orders that would make the pet change its target throughout the fight.

3. The ranger successfully drives off their attacker, who stealths at low health and goes to hide behind a wall. The opponent is NOT visible, but happens to be just inside the pet’s leash range.

4. The opponent is downed while in stealth due to some ticking effect (conditions, etc)

5. Opponent unstealths behind aforementioned wall. Since no conditions are still ticking after being downed, there is no visual indicator to the ranger that he/she is even there, yet the pet still tracks and follows when the Ranger has absolutely no other clues as to their opponent’s whereabouts.

This has nothing to do with pets’ otherwise bad AI; the OP is pointing out a specific function that would single-handedly make the Ranger OP if in theory all the professions were otherwise perfectly balanced.

This has everything to do with a pet’s bad ai. I’ve mentioned it several times myself. Stealth doesn’t drop agro in PvE (it used to). Since you don’t drop agro, the pet doesn’t drop target. /end

Atherakhia.4086:

This has everything to do with a pet’s bad ai. I’ve mentioned it several times myself. Stealth doesn’t drop agro in PvE (it used to). Since you don’t drop agro, the pet doesn’t drop target. /end

I apologize if I was unclear. Pet AI aside from this function is pretty much the same before/after the implementation. Without this function, pet AI would still be bad.

I have a Ranger built for bleed duration with pet condition duration, pet condition damage and pet bleed on crits traits. I just run in use sharpening stone and stack up some bleeds and run behind a wall and wait for targets to die from bleeds I applied and bleeds constantly being applied by my pet.

It’s absolutely hilarious that this works.

My pet has even downed full health glass cannon thieves alone while I was downed. GG.

http://youtu.be/0f3Br3BKRqI
I was once crt for 8,720 by a rangers bird pet when i had about 1,800 toughness. I am skeptical about ranger pets not being good.

I like how you make it sound like the Pet presses cntrl T and the ranger then targets you. If you have been targeted and the target the locked, the pet will always hunt you out. If your not targeted the pet won’t. You can shake the rangers target with stealth, but the pet remains fixed if it has been set on you.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

I like how you make it sound like the Pet presses cntrl T and the ranger then targets you. If you have been targeted and the target the locked, the pet will always hunt you out. If your not targeted the pet won’t. You can shake the rangers target with stealth, but the pet remains fixed if it has been set on you.

Again… this is normal behavior. Players can do this too. Turn on auto and attack something, select the guardian and get your ranged daze ready. When you see them cast, daze. Until you shoot the second target, you’ll still fire at the first.

What’s also funny about this thread is it wasn’t even a month ago where people were complaining thieves were overpowered because they could drop target and people wanted to change stealth so players didn’t have to reselect the thief.

Just make a new thread asking ANet to make stealth drop agro in sPvP only and you’ll resolve all the problems in this thread.