Guild Wars 2

Why would you give a ranged pet a retreat skill that activates randomly?

I have too many times seen my carrion devourer make a “retreat” just to get so far away from the target, that it had to run back to the target just to get in range again! Why!?!?

No clue, I always hated that about the bloody things.

Hmm. Thats odd. I’ve never noticed my devourer using it when it was already at long-range to the point where it puts it out of its own attack range. I almost always see it being used once the enemy gets to melee range.

Curious. PvP or PvE? Any AoE’s being aimed at / near the pet, that maybe its trying to dodge them?

I like devourer retreat, often it has stopped my pet from getting rofflestomped

Retreat is useful…. but i hate it, devouers don’t have prio on KD – can’t use swap to save me from stomping like wolves

Devourers are pretty good at staying alive… retreating from foes or knocking back enemies that get close. They are pretty low maintenance with their high toughness and ranged attacks.

When you get downed, hit F3 to call your devourer over to you, and then hit F1 when they try to stomp. Then you hope you get the Tail Lash and not the Retreat. Its random. You can also drag devourers into melee range (or drag foes to your devourer) to try and get them to tail lash, but there is always a chance of a retreat. Those kinds of situations I curse the retreat, but the majority of the time it is an asset.

The AI could be improved a bit (If you hit F1 with the devourer out of melee range but still fairly close to the target, it will open with a retreat). But overall I’m pretty happy with the behavior. Usually when a mob is running to get within range, that means its big skills have had time to go on cooldown. So the moment it gets in melee range of the devourer, it’ll start its big damage skill, and the devourer will retreat out of range of the skill. Net result is the devourer “dodges” the big skill.

This would have been a great PET SKILL that the rangers could use, instead of it being auto.

I’m not a fan of when the devourer aggros other NPCs due to its use of this skill. Often it won’t be in any real danger and then aggro a group of NPCs. I’m not pleased with it when this happens … especially since I have no control over when it does this.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

I tend to use devourers frequently due to their better defenses and the retreat skill specifically. Sometimes they use it oddly, but more often than not they use it only when an enemy has closed distance and is hitting them, in which case they retreat and I am happier because of it since they can drop aggro and manage themselves a bit more.

Hi, I was wondering what pets you use frequently in WvW fighting zergs.

I would rather see them use their knockback first before retreat.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

I tend to use devourers frequently due to their better defenses and the retreat skill specifically. Sometimes they use it oddly, but more often than not they use it only when an enemy has closed distance and is hitting them, in which case they retreat and I am happier because of it since they can drop aggro and manage themselves a bit more.

Sounds like a very useful skill imho. I think I may just make a Charr ranger instead of a human after reading this…

There are tame-able devourers in the Black Citadel, you can tame them without any level requirement or worry about surrounding enemies.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

I tend to use devourers frequently due to their better defenses and the retreat skill specifically. Sometimes they use it oddly, but more often than not they use it only when an enemy has closed distance and is hitting them, in which case they retreat and I am happier because of it since they can drop aggro and manage themselves a bit more.

would it be possible to set the skill as a “trigger” skill?

so that a fixed area around the pet, kinda like an aura, trigger the skill when an enemy approaches?

I’d just like a way to set my pet to use its F2 whenever its off cooldown.