Guild Wars 2

One main flaw with the ranger’s pet mechanic is that if the pet dies, we lose out on a huge chunk of our damage, and pets tend to die a lot or spend a lot of time at the ranger’s side to prevent them from dying. This is especially true in WvW.

A solution may be to reduce the pet damage to maybe 10% of the ranger’s total damage while buffing the ranger’s damage greatly to compensate. The pet’s range should be limited to 1500 units from the ranger, but the pet should be invincible. It would still be affected by CC, but it could not be killed. All of the pets’ F2 skills could then be improved to provide more utility, aoe, or burst. I think that this would make the ranger pet mechanic much more reliable without being overpowered. It would also greatly increase our usefulness in dungeons.

What do you guys think? Any opinions and suggestions are appreciated.

I agree in part with this. Drop the pet to 10% of the damage ratio and increase the Ranger’s coefficients to match, this I like. Making them then invulnerable, not so much. Any other profession mechanic has limitations, and the fact that we could lose 10% and a utility is fair. Losing 30-40% I think is a tad too extreme.

I do see how invulnerability would be over the top. Maybe just increasing pet survivability would do well.

I think a better option would be to implement a Grandmaster trait (lets just say Remorseless for the hell of it) where when your pet dies you gain X% of your pets damage added onto your attacks, this would make it so if your pet dies you’re not totally boned, but you still wont be rewarded for just killing your pet off, maybe even slap a time limit on it.

However, the pet should NOT deal a miniscule amount of damage, because that will limit our builds big time, and if pets only do 10% by default they’d need to make traits play a much bigger role in both pet damage and player damage which is likely not going to happen.

As steep a hill as it seems to be, I think they have to go all in on ensuring the pet staying alive is the norm. I don’t think they can go two ways with the class and design trait options to account for dead pets. It’s like planning for failure.

Just to put this out there, I am not one who understands all the things that go along with balancing, but have some idea of how it works. At least on a miniscule scale. The only reason I tout the %damage decrease on the pet, with the scaling up of the Ranger base is because it would put us more in-line with other professions and negatively impact us less when horrible situations and designs favor our pets becoming a free meal for some malicious force.

I like to look at it this way. A warrior, (I know a different profession and thus shouldn’t be compared to but hear me out,) has the Adrenaline mechanic. This mechanic can be utilized to increase their damage output or their sustain capacity in several ways, none of which negatively impact them further then their own decision on how to use it is. They can either use the adrenaline to gain a burst damage, use it for sustain hp regen, Sustain to increase damage up to 15%, as well as possibly increase their critical hit chance. They may lose out on the increased sustained damage by bursting, or lose out on Condition removal by Saving their Adrenaline, but it does not have a negative impact upon the character in any other form. It can be blocked, dodged, or evaded… but it can’t be taken out of the battle for up to 60 seconds, or permanently disabled in certain encounters. The same goes for Thieves, Elementalists, Mesmers, Guardians, Engineers, and Necromancers. We are the only class with a situationally useless mechanic that can be robbed from us so easily.

Noting that the pet can be increased in health, given the ability to evade, or given even AOE damage reduction etc., still can not make up for any and all situations, (IE: Laser room for the lose! Cannons barrage for the lose! Zerg combat for the Lose! Lol.) the only way to present the loss of our friendly beast is to mitigate the impact of his loss. Perhaps 10% is too low, maybe 15% or even 20% is more understandable, regardless the 30-40% is far too much.

Now, if the pet is downgraded, and the Ranger elevated, this does not mean we lose a lot of versatility. At the same time as implementing something like this, what about a Grandmaster trait in Beast Mastery that increases Damage for pet 10%? Now we are opting to give more power to our pet by not taking that bonus for ourselves. By re-vamping a few traits in the Beast Mastery line, especially the less than favorable X-family gets X-ability traits, and adding some of the traits from the other lines that establish your furry/scaly/feathery ally as a threat you can still maintain a Beast Master feel, but with more of your basic prowess intact when in a situation that could not be resolved with a functioning pet.

Don’t get me wrong, I know my pets can handle a lot. My Drakes Solo Tanked Mai in the electric field the other morning giving me time to save my allies. Bears made it ridiculously easy. They can survive a lot of punishment that even some players can’t. I just want to see the little guys not gutting us in 2 fields of play because they can’t survive some of the designed content regardless of management and skill.

Sorry for the extra post, but didn’t think of this while I was posting prior.

~Durz
In regards to re-vamping traits to increase the Beast Master feel after the damage redistribution, how do you feel about traits like Companions Might? Ways that we as a player can utilize our skills to enhance the pet? What about a rework on some of the shouts like Guard? Maybe Guard could lose stealth and instead add Stability and Protection. Sic Em, Increase damage and movement speed by 50% (Thieves get it in stealth, so someone else ought to lol.) Protect Me could be revamped, as I’m not a big fan of a shout that basically commands your pet to kamikaze.

If some of those utility skills, and a few traits were reworked so you could still make a viable master of beasts, but had other options beside beast master not critically nuked in the process, would it be more appealing?

Meh then you’re totally pidgeon holed to be a master of beasts where as currently there’s quite a but of options, I would like them to bring back our Utility Skill “Comfort Animal” which had a 30s CD and would Rez the pet, or if the pet was alive heal it to full and cleanse it of condis, that alone would make em more useful in areas, I know I heard someone say that “Protect Me!” Should chain into “Get Up!” Which ends the shout early, increases the CD but gives your pet full health.

I agree with Spectre here. The pet dying and cutting 30-40% of our damage output is insane. I was trying to come up with a way to keep the pet mechanic without it hindering us, and I think you refined it really well.

Durzlla, I don’t see how doing this would pigeon hole rangers into beast mastery. Actually, I see how this would expand build options. Beast masters would still be able to use the class mechanic better than others. However, marksman rangers would be doing A LOT more damage with bows (just an example) without being hindered as much if/when the pet dies.

Durz-
I value your opinion but am forced to disagree. I don’t see this as pigeon holing the Ranger into a BM build as much as it would establish BM as a build archetype with other options being available as well. It may force a particular trait line to a particular build, but is that not the norm? Just like all spirit skills being in the Nature Magic tree, or all traps in skirmishing, ( Which of course I still find odd.) Maybe in that vein, during the rework they could move traps to Wilderness Survival and sword/offhand cool downs to skirmishing, ( where they’d make more logical sense I believe.)

I’m not saying I’m right, god knows I can’t foresee every avenue or venue, but I see that putting all Or most of our talents in their associated trees would make speccing and specializing far simpler.

Now the shouts idea I do like, personally however, I’d prefer the option to ‘F’ Rez my pet from beta back. You’d see a 75% increase in Runes of Mercy use as well as our faster revive trait being implemented.

Again, just my 2¢.

I’m not saying it will pidgeon hole people INTO BM, but all BM rangers would be pidgeon hold in their build set up, like pretty much all the other pet using build

Durz-

I guess I’m not seeing what you are seeing mate. I’ll post why I don’t see it, and perhaps you can tell me specifically why you do. By increasing Ranger coefficients on their weapons and decreasing the pets coefficient you maintain overall DPS in a base level similar to other professions. Where as most classes have a trait that increases damage x% under certain conditions, make 2 for ranger. One in marksmanship, and one in BM. The one in BM could be a major trait, sacrifice 20% Ranger damage, increase pet damage 30%. Now, if you want to go BM you can choose between a burst or tank pet. This trait line can still only utilize 30 trait points. So, let’s say I opt for Bunker BM. I can still go 0-0-30-10-30 and get a trapping, condi style bunker, (Rather than a dual wielder,) Or I could go with a more DPS build, and either spec my damage between Ranger and pet, or allow my pet to tank while I burst, sacrificing my potential survival in the process.

The biggest flaw I see in my setup is that it could make a lot of players just ignore their pet completely. My response to that, good. Let them. As more and more pet less (meaning of course non-utilized pets) Rangers show up, our opponents will forget about the threat they pose… until it eats them. This would be no different then a warrior who never blows his adrenaline, a guardian who never utilizes their virtues, or an Ele who simply fails at understanding that there are other attunements than air/fire.

Regardless, as we are the only ones really posting here I’ll let a dead thread stay dead.

That’d make them even more pidgeonholed, it’d make it so if i want to be a BM i need to not only go into the BM tree but i’m literally FORCED to take that trait in order to be viable. Not to mention it’d be the only trait in the game that nerfs the character…

Imo i think they should just balance it out that the ranger isn’t SUPPOSED to have the pet up 100%, so the pet could be squishy and deal a lot of damage (or be a bear or another tank pet and essentially just not deal much damage but always be present), so if you had a Cat you’d deal ~ 120% damage, but if you had a dead pet you’d deal 90-100% dmg.

Just as a quick question mate. What is being a BM to you, and why doesn’t involve using the Beast Mastery trait line to begin with? If you want to be a true Beast Master you place that trait in opposition of a trait that would make your pet a massive tank. I just don’t see how playing a BM doesn’t involve using their trait line.

I guess from where I’m viewing it this would make Ranger the class with BM as a build type, instead of the class being BM with a Ranger arch-type.

I still see more variety my way. (Again, I can be/am often times ignorant of all factors.) You would thus be able to play a Surviving Marksman archetype (maining MM and WS without making your build rely on a now gutted pet, but perhaps still supplemented by unique F2) MM/Skirmisher, MM/Spirit, MM/etc.) All of these potential archetypes are currently limited in effectiveness in situations where a pet is vulnerable to instant nuking.

I really enjoy my Bunker BM as well, so please don’t think I don’t see it’s viability or want to see it gone. I think some clearer steps to do it, while increasing the viability of other builds is a perfect synergy.

Furthermore, I know my BM trait seems incredibly awkward being the only trait that “decreases player capacity”, but we are also the only class who has a permenant side kick. Maybe they could add a similar trait to Minion Mancer Necromancers. It could be called Blood of the Master. Sacrifice 10% HP while traited, Minions gain 10% Damage increase or reduction or something. That’d be fun. Same for Engineers too! Our Ranger one could be called Master’s bond! (All speculation of course.)

One last note. I do like the idea of balancing around pet uptime as well. That would put it more in line with other professions mechanics that are balanced around Cool Downs/Availability, I just see it as being much harder because uptime on a pet is more situational than a guaranteed cool down on use.