Guild Wars 2

I do not quite buy into the whole idea that pets cripple rangers. I believe that pets can be extremely beneficial if used correctly. However, I believe that pets are very unforgiving. If you mess up and your pet dies, you lose a large portion of your DPS for 60 seconds.

I can’t think of any other situation where a class can lose so much DPS, for so long. Perhaps a well timed interruption or condition could shut down that much DPS, but only for perhaps 15/20 seconds. What if when a pet dies he is only gone for 20 seconds, and you are locked out of pet swapping? I believe that would be much more consistent with the counters other classes can face.

This would maintain our current play style of monitoring our pet, because it will allow us to maintain that DPS uptime when properly managed (proper pet swapping). Failure to do so means a 20 second DPS drop. A substantial effect, but not too much so.

Furthermore, I think this would make BM builds much more viable. Currently, I think they are great when your pet is alive, but a 60 second pet death constitutes a horrible vulnerability.

I know that many proposed changes to pet mechanics are shut down because they make rangers OP when pets are properly managed. What do you all think? Would a 20 sec pet death, along with a 20 second lock on pet swapping, be too fast and exploitable? Perhaps 30 seconds?

For one thing, bm builds tend to have less pet deaths because of the fact that it increases pet stats by 300 for each one. They also tend to run a regen spec too which also helps to keep pets alive. Bm’s do get a decreased recharge time on pet swapping on as well, going from 16 when swapping alive pets to 48 for swapping defeated ones.

Personally, I think that the recharge penalty for a defeated pet needs to be reduced. You can control pets but most of the time their deaths are unavoidable. You can run very tanky pets, but this also corresponds to a significant dps loss as well (compared to using less tanky ones).

I think the swapping penalty for a defeated pet should only be two times the normal time instead of three. So 40 seconds for a defeated pet compared to 60 now.

Recharge penalty needs to go. There are too many encounters in PvE where if your pet is not a drake it’s gonna die.

It only gets worse in WvW.

Zenith.7301:

Recharge penalty needs to go. There are too many encounters in PvE where if your pet is not a drake it’s gonna die.

It only gets worse in WvW.

Don’t you think that could be crazily unbalanced in some cases? I’ve always read the example of two rangers able to solo essentially all pve encounters when Anet tested adjusted pet mechanics, and the complete removal of the recharge penalty would enable that strategy.

Na, they nerf pet to a point that I put him on to passive during big events because they’ll die instantly and do minimal damage. I rather them stay alive but passive, while giving me buffs or removing my conditions.

TankAnyone.5370:

Zenith.7301:

Recharge penalty needs to go. There are too many encounters in PvE where if your pet is not a drake it’s gonna die.

It only gets worse in WvW.

Don’t you think that could be crazily unbalanced in some cases? I’ve always read the example of two rangers able to solo essentially all pve encounters when Anet tested adjusted pet mechanics, and the complete removal of the recharge penalty would enable that strategy.

You do realize there are classes that can already solo content, right?

I mean how much effort would it take you to go to youtube and watch a video by Sesshi soloing the hardest OvE content, fractal lv50, on an elementalist or warrior?

And if they are afraid of pets tanking they can simply remove pets from the aggro table of bosses, problem solved.

I think the difference in cooldowns if a pet dies should just leave all together.

If it dies and you switch it out, it should be still a 20second cooldown timer over a minute long one. If you HAVE to add time then 30. The fact that the other classes aren’t punished as heavily for misuse should be applied to the ranger as well.

TankAnyone.5370:

Zenith.7301:

Recharge penalty needs to go. There are too many encounters in PvE where if your pet is not a drake it’s gonna die.

It only gets worse in WvW.

Don’t you think that could be crazily unbalanced in some cases? I’ve always read the example of two rangers able to solo essentially all pve encounters when Anet tested adjusted pet mechanics, and the complete removal of the recharge penalty would enable that strategy.

Well if the health buff in pve is not too much then it shouldn’t be to much in pvp…

Zenith.7301:

You do realize there are classes that can already solo content, right?

I mean how much effort would it take you to go to youtube and watch a video by Sesshi soloing the hardest OvE content, fractal lv50, on an elementalist or warrior?

And if they are afraid of pets tanking they can simply remove pets from the aggro table of bosses, problem solved.

I do realize that, doesnt mean it should be that way and it is not something Anet seems to be trying to promote, so why enable it further?

We are not gonna get a larger change to game mechanics in order to fix problems within the pet system. Completely removing the respawn timer would require extensive testing to check for exploits or it would just cause more problems. Removing them from the aggro table is also highly exploitable.

Manekk.6981:

Well if the health buff in pve is not too much then it shouldn’t be to much in pvp…

What health buff?

TankAnyone.5370:

Manekk.6981:

Well if the health buff in pve is not too much then it shouldn’t be to much in pvp…

What health buff?

Right here, sweetpea. Seems you weren’t around back in those days.

Just make loud whistle default behavior.

Soilder.3607:

TankAnyone.5370:

Manekk.6981:

Well if the health buff in pve is not too much then it shouldn’t be to much in pvp…

What health buff?

Right here, sweetpea. Seems you weren’t around back in those days.

Oh okay thanks. Well I was around, kind of. I have been playing GW2 since release, but I’ve taken some breaks and that must have happened during one of them.

Anyways, I don’t see the relevance of the health buff to this subject….

TankAnyone.5370:

Soilder.3607:

TankAnyone.5370:

Manekk.6981:

Well if the health buff in pve is not too much then it shouldn’t be to much in pvp…

What health buff?

Right here, sweetpea. Seems you weren’t around back in those days.

Oh okay thanks. Well I was around, kind of. I have been playing GW2 since release, but I’ve taken some breaks and that must have happened during one of them.

Anyways, I don’t see the relevance of the health buff to this subject….

Of course it’s relevant it’s a big increase in the healthpool so having your pet die is really really your own fault when it happens (not you personally the hypothetical ranger) it would really only happen if the pet is focused or in a giant blobzerg of aoe, in any case nobody is complaining rangers are too OP and can solo anything in pve without effort with this buff so I can’t see why it would be seen as a problem in wvw or pvp, would it make flipping camps easy? yes but that is already easy and any class can do it, soloing keep lords would also be supereasy but also that can already be done solo without effort if nobody defends.

I’m not making any statements about whether or not pets can survive in combat. I agree that they should be just fine as long as managed properly. That however is not the issue I made this thread for.

The issue I’m trying to discuss is that when a pet does die, either because of massive aoe or player failure, it results in a very long dps penalty, one that is not forgiving and is not comparable in duration to any penalty that I know of that another class can experience.

So, again, I do not see how the health buff is relevant to the topic of this thread.

Perhaps the adjustment I’m suggesting is not needed, and instead it’s just a learn-to-play issue for people who fail to manage their pets. It was just an idea that I had that I figured would bring the ranger class more in line with other classes when it comes to forgiveness of mistakes.