Guild Wars 2

Wanting to know where the Ranger community is if pets ever receive a limited cleave and/or AOE. Such as all melee pets that currently hit 1 target are changed to now be able to hit up to 2. Maybe to go as far as give the Spiders’ auto attack a 60 radius that can hit up to 3 targets.

Thoughts? Or are pets all right as they are now with the amount of targets they can hit?

sounds reasonable, although I’m biased and have been leveling a ranger without tomes. only problem I see with this change is drakes may appear weaker if anet gives every other pet cleave on autos like they did necro/thief dagger.

I feel the tanky pets should all have cleave. Drakes, bears, and pigs having cleave would allow rangers to take tanky pets that have decent survivability for dungeons without suffering a large DPS drop.

Every pet should have cleave for 2 targets on AA and 3 on skill use, at least.

I’d say it should vary per pet type, but there definitely needs to be more cleave on pet attacks I think.

I’d personally go for something like….

2-target cleave – Dogs, Cats, Moas, Fish, Jellyfish
3-target cleave – Pigs, Bears, Drakes

Piercing Projectiles – Spiders

I’d also look at giving a cleave AoE to some pets’ activated attacks (both F2 and those they use themselves) as well. Not an exhaustive list, but thinking stuff like…

Arcdotus’ Maul
Bird’s Swoop
Pig’s Charge
Moa’s rapid peck attack
Devourer’s Tail Whip

Since they are unwilling to fix pet ai they should definitely give pets a good cleave radius so that they will hit moving targets a bit more reliably.

It should be overpowered, if they fix the AI-problems (And i hope they will fix them till HoT release). Or they are descreasing the damage.

Electro.4173:

I’d say it should vary per pet type, but there definitely needs to be more cleave on pet attacks I think.

I’d personally go for something like….

Piercing Projectiles – Spiders

That would be completely useless if you think about how much they arc. I’d be more happy if the venom “splattered” and affect up to 2 extra targets

Ehecatl.9172:

I feel the tanky pets should all have cleave. Drakes, bears, and pigs having cleave would allow rangers to take tanky pets that have decent survivability for dungeons without suffering a large DPS drop.

How is adding cleave to two lackluster pet families change the fact that drakes will still be the optimal choice for a tankier pet with cleave abilities? From a dungeon aspect of the game, this wouldn’t change anything.

Drakes for certain mobs and bosses, felines with their high personal dps and vuln on autoattack for everything else. Bears and pigs will need more than just cleave to even compete. Bears might aswell be removed from the game, maybe it will somewhat stop the breeding of useless pve rangers.

If they’re going to address pets, i think attack-on-the-move would be the main game changer. Non-cleave single target attack is fine if it can hit.

Puck.9612:

Since they are unwilling to fix pet ai they should definitely give pets a good cleave radius so that they will hit moving targets a bit more reliably.

I’d rather get F5 and F6 on passsive/aggressive and stow/unstow… oh, and perma-stow

cafard.8953:

If they’re going to address pets, i think attack-on-the-move would be the main game changer. Non-cleave single target attack is fine if it can hit.

i agree with cafard. the pet’s “brain” is far too slow(sorry wolf, i still love you). the current ai design is simply too much for them. if they removed how much thinking the pet had to do and let the players have control over it, i believe the pet will start to function at a level that rangers would finally be happy with

(example)
f1: basic attack (default, auto)
f2: pet skill2
f3: pet skill3
f4: pet skill4

i don’t know why anet believes this is too much micromanagement, some classes actually use f1-f4(ele, eng, mes), f1-f5(necros). maybe anet believes rangers aren’t as smart as other classes, thus, rangers must have their class played for them

Drakes already have cleave.