Guild Wars 2

I keep it short:

Either make pets immune to all incoming AoE damage, or make it in a way that pets only get AoE damage when the player gets AoE damage.

If the player gets damage from AoE, the pet could also get the same or 50% of that damage migrated to it. This means if the player is skilled, and dodges /evades the AoE, the pet gets no damage. But if you are not a skilled player and just keep getting AoE damage, you will be punished by loosing your pet.

What do you think, my fellow rangers?

ps. a general buff to pets’ health is more than wellcome!

They need to do something for AoE. I think a strait up damage passive damage mitigation to AoE or an avoidance mechanic like a dodge on a short timer so they can automatically avoid a spike attack and give the ranger enough time to recall the pet.

Also: Agony Resist. Seriously.

Well, the 28th January updates didn’t do anything about the pet AoE issue. Maybe we get some love on 26th February?

Yes please. Necromancer minions, turrets, elementals, etc too. Its a joke that so many playstyles are rendered completely useless any time there is tough content like dungeons, wvw, champions, bosses etc. No one else has this problem except pet classes, sure not all builds are optimal or well suited for all situations, but no other type of build is made utterly worthless for all difficult content.

I’m not sure if they have any plans to fix this but I hope they do. I completely gave up on trying to micro my pet to stay out of aoe and I never try it anymore vs. kholer. I don’t understand why my pet can’t dodge the simplest moves I learned to dodge on my first time playing against them. I think an easy fix could be having pet recall the pet directly to the player in pve and maybe stay as is in pvp. I just don’t like the idea of having to watch my pet die without much chance to save it.

Another thread about this. Sure, I’ll bite…

AOE reduction and/or
Instant recall of pets, possibly with a shadowstep and/or
Pets get 1.5secs distortion upon Ranger dodge

AOE reduction or immunity is just a bad solution it will cause more problems and a big inbalance. There needs to be a better solution. The disortion idea is just a bad with all the ways to gain vigor. You could turn that 1.5 seconds of let call it what it is “Invulnerability” into 7.5 seconds of pet god mode every 15 seconds.Then you could always throw signet of stone on top of it. Then put that on a guard jaguar.

I want rangers to improve but not like this.

I kinda’ agree with Serraphin. This game has an awful lot of AOE between the ground targets and the cleaving attacks, much more than your average MMORPG. I’m not sure if the standard solution is necessarily the best solution.

I think the issue is rooted in the design philosophy of Ally NPCs in general. Traiting Ally NPCs is more about making them survive long enough to be viable at all, than providing additional functionality or new gameplay. That really puts a damper on builds that want to use one of these utilities without specializing completely, and non-BM Rangers in particular are all sorts of screwed.

I don’t know if there is any simple neat and tidy way to resolve that. Seems like the stuff of massive overhaul.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

AOE reduction or immunity is just a bad solution it will cause more problems and a big inbalance. There needs to be a better solution. The disortion idea is just a bad with all the ways to gain vigor. You could turn that 1.5 seconds of let call it what it is “Invulnerability” into 7.5 seconds of pet god mode every 15 seconds.Then you could always throw signet of stone on top of it. Then put that on a guard jaguar.

I want rangers to improve but not like this.

Ok, I definitely did not think that idea through. Good call on no distortion.

What about making the Call Back skill more responsive (interupts pets current action)? And then add an F5/utility to make your pet instantly shadowstep to you with a cooldown comensurate with such an awesome ability.

I just want a way for my pet to be just as present in dungeons and WvW as he is in PvE open world. Get used to the mechanics of your pet while leveling, accept that he’s a big chunk of your damage (revel in it even), and then watch him spend most of his time dead in a dungeon.

For PvE dungeons, I’d mostly be satisfied if they’d add a third pet mode.

• Peaceful: don’t attack at all.
• Attack: stand there and attack no matter what.
• Careful: attack when you can, but avoid/move out of red circles, interrupt current action and immediately return if called (so you can reliably use F3 to avoid a boss’ big attack).

Maybe add a mechanic where hitting F1 with the pet’s current target targeted makes the pet dodge/evade.

Solandri.9640:

For PvE dungeons, I’d mostly be satisfied if they’d add a third pet mode.

• Peaceful: don’t attack at all.
• Attack: stand there and attack no matter what.
• Careful: attack when you can, but avoid/move out of red circles, interrupt current action and immediately return if called (so you can reliably use F3 to avoid a boss’ big attack).

Maybe add a mechanic where hitting F1 with the pet’s current target targeted makes the pet dodge/evade.

I had a simillar idea by making pets having a endurance bar and making them evade for 1.5 sec on recall. This would burn half the just lika a player-dodge. Also making them unable to attack while dodging will calm ppl rageing about invincible pets.

I’ve noticed that it isn’t just AoE that melts pets; direct and melee attacks can be just as much of a problem. Since melee companions are up next to the enemy whenever they are fighting, the chance of them taking direct hits by multiple enemies is common and even a single enemy can down them in a few hits.

The problem I see is that this game expects you to use positioning, dodges, and defensive skills to avoid attacks, but companions lack any of this. In order to address this companions for all classes, not just the rangers pet, need mitigation techniques they can use to effectively avoid attacks, or just a raw increase in their health and toughness.

Aye but they can get protection on dodge, plus any boon the player get and invulnerablity from thing like signet of stone and jaguars get stealth. Plus more targets make it less likely they will take damage look at mesmers only real reason they are a pain is becuase of all the clones. If you can stay on target they go down fast. So with that said aoe is the big problem.

Oh and barkskin damage mitigation is there we just need to use them.

I think giving them a larger base health and toughness both is needed, combined with either a flat damage reduction on aoe or even better a damage reduction on recall.