Guild Wars 2

It’s been a fairly consistent them from what I’ve seen that ranger players either find the pet useless, or those that actually do like the pets find them to be in various ways sub-par; visually, mechanically, and others. The biggest complaint I’ve seen is that they’re juvenile and undersized compared to what players want them to be. I’ve been considering how this could be addressed and I think I came to a reasonable conclusion about what could be done.

Many players are fine with how their pets are now. these are the trappers, berserkers, and in general the people that don’t rely on their pet as anything more than a damage sponge from time to time. They’d take a change that increases the size and power of their pets negatively, as it adversely affects their chosen form of play. But it wouldn’t be such a problem if they had a choice in the matter, which is why I decided that a trait along these lines would be the most effective choice.

Overgrown Pets as a grandmaster trait would allow those who have specialized in the development of their pet to be rewarded with their choice by making the pet a major player in a combat, rather than a neglected critter that can be ignored simply by strafing. Here’s my suggested trait:

Oversized Pet
Pets increase in size and power at the cost of its master’s strength.

The suggested difference I’m thinking of is that, based on level, Rangers with this trait take a hefty penalty to their stats in exchange for a similar or greater bonus to their pets, along with the visual change that the pet is larger – drakes becoming similar to drake broodmothers, wolves becoming like dire wolves, and devourers becoming like the massive devourers we see constantly around Ascalon. the stat change I’m thinking of currently is, at level 80, a penalty of 350 or 400 to the stats of the ranger in question, while the pet gains a buff at x1.5 that number, putting the number at 525 or 600 for the pet’s buff. The reason for this is fairly self-evident – A player is better than an AI. This is simply how it works in current technology. Thus you have to compensate for the loss of ability in the higher strength part of the equation by making the pet capable of making up for the damage lost, despite enemies moving around and cutting the DPS a pet can hold down to nill if they know what they’re doing, or go after the ranger rather than a pet (a near guarantee in PvP).

I’ll break down how this would affect play as a ranger in the various game modes

PvE
Actually, this remains relatively unaffected for a player using this. Already, most rangers make use of their pet as either ranged supplemental damage or as a distraction/tank, allowing them to turn the enemy into a pincushion with impunity. This isn’t a fact that would change; this would simply favor one pet staying on the field longer rather than swapping constantly to gain the buffs related to swapping, as that pet could hold aggro longer due to having a higher toughness and vitality.

Dungeons
As with the ranger explanation guide for ranger pets i wrote some weeks ago, I feel that dungeons deserve their own mention, rather than being lumped in with PvE. Despite this, much the same applies; a party would be able to rely on a drake being able to effectively distract and tank a boss if necessary. However, this would also have a secondary effect in making the ranger more centered around support and helping his allies; equipping a warhorn to grant fury and might to allies, using healing spring to heal them, and laying traps to prevent enemies from approaching party members unscathed, just as examples. This is something that, at current, rangers tend not to do; a recent build in the rangers forum was shot down because ranger support simply isn’t worth it. This would allow rangers to be supportive of their allies while still contributing to the fight, and in general I find that to be an excellent prospect – the more people work together, the better.

PvP
It’d make things more interesting in this mode, certainly. Ranger players would have to understand how to divert focus from themselves – for example, using the new 3 second stealth that was added to Hunter’s Shot on the longbow. enemy players have to not only hunt down the ranger, but also avoid a pet that’s actually a threat rather than simply a critter following you around that can ignore because your armor is just that high. All around, it makes the ranger a more challenging enemy to face, if they know what they’re doing, but fragile enough that if they are caught it’s the end for them. everybody has to play more intelligently, and that’s nothing but good.

WvW
The increased size of a pet on the battlefield would add distraction to a fight, a valuable commodity in the chaos of a zerg vs zerg encounter. At current, it’s largely agreed that the most valuable pets in WvW are the dogs; the sylvan hound for its ability to grant regeneration and the wolf for its fear howl in particular. This belies a certain fact – pets don’t matter enough in WvW to even really be considered a threat. I’ve been running WvW heavily recently to test my theory, and so far it’s been true – most players will simply ignore a pet in thew heat of battle, because it simply doesn’t matter. Even the aforementioned hounds are only considered good for a boon and a stunning condition. For a key feature of a profession that has, in a meta sense, made sure the ranger has less damage than everybody else, it makes the whole thing feel a bit hollow.

Fluff Considerations
A large part of what should be considered in building a character is the way they feel, and the idea behind their abilities. It’s the reason rangers don’t have access to elemental fire magic, or warrior banners – the ranger is a master of the wild or an extremely skilled hunter, not a tactician, and not an elemental wizard. A player can manage the tactician part, but that’s the player, not the character. Because of this, a ranger with this trait falls into one of a few categories that I can think of, though I’m sure there’s more.

• The Beast Master in question has devoted their abilities more to training and breeding than fighting. the pet has benefitted from this, having more potent genetics, better combat training, and possibly a magical infusion or two to make it stronger.
• A druidic ranger, focusing on spirits and the like, has worked with the nature spirits to strengthen their companion at the sacrifice of their own vitality.
• It takes a certain level of focus away from the battle to handle such a large and powerful pet. Without focusing as much on the combat, the ranger isn’t as effective as they might otherwise be

Another consideration is that, in the world, these type of overgrown pet are already available. A sylvari in Caledon Forest for an event in fighting the undead has a pet broodmother drake, as do a team of bandits in the Brisban Wildlands. There’s an event chain in (I believe) the Iron Marches that involves you helping an ogre chieftain tame a siege devourer in order to impress his tribe and win them back from a usurper. Garm, Eir’s pet, is a dire wolf. These aren’t impossible things, and in fact happen quite often, though infrequently, and player characters are nothing if not meant to be exceptional.

Mechanical Considerations
the introduction of this trait would be introducing a risk vs reward gameplay point; by making your player character more frail, you allow your pet to become much stronger. I don’t know what the exact numbers were that was intended – I’ve heard 70/30 split in DPS in favor of the ranger, but also 60/40 – but this would tip the balance in reverse. Correct me if I’m wrong, but at 600 stat difference this trait would incur the following changes:

For The Pet
*+28.2% Damage
*+28.56% Critical Chance
*+6,000 Health
*+28.2% Damage Mitigation

This is not inconsiderable, and it may seem like a lot. It is. But then you have to consider what the ranger in question would be losing.

While For The Ranger
*-18.8% Damage
*-19.04% Critical Chance
*-4,000 Health
*-18.8% Damage Mitigation

I know players that would rage at the mere thought of a 10% reduction in their damaging abilities, nevermind nearly 20%, especially when it negatively impacts their survivability as well. However, it’s a tradeoff – if you can keep your enemy’s focus on your pet, Then the loss of damage mitigation and health is negligible, but you need to keep their focus on the pet or you’re screwed. As I mentioned before, this favors intelligent play.

Another thing to keep in mind is that players, largely, consider there to be only one viable build for high end PvP, and that’s trapping. Beastmasters used to be acceptable before pets took a nerf to their damage, which this would serve to alleviate.

Also of note is the rampant complaint that AI individuals simply don’t move out of AoEs. By increasing the toughness and vitaility of a pet, this largely deals with the issue. Perhaps not as much as some might like, but it’s certainly a start.

In Conclusion
I’m having trouble seeing how this would adversely affect gameplay. By making it part of a Grandmaster trait, only players that are already specializing in the overall ability of their pets have access to this, and even then if they don’t want to deal with the penalty of having a very powerful pet at their own expense, they don’t have to – there’s a reason there’s more than one grandmaster trait in every line. That reason is so that people have a choice, rather than getting shoehorned into a specific setup for going after the bonuses provided by a trait line.

If anybody has (constructive) criticisms, the ability to point out flaws in my reasoning, and similar, I’d love to hear them, and will edit accordingly if I’m proven wrong on points.