Guild Wars 2

Rangers were designed around the pet, you made the class this way.

Yet we have a lot of pets that are simply a bag of suck.

There is a reason people were running things like Birds/Cats/Drakes/Wolves

Because most of the other pets left a lot to be desired.

Bears for example, I mean really this is a throw away pet that serves little purpose….Their damage is blah, and their utility is even worse, Mostly due to to the fact it has long cast time that generally requires them to run to a target before they even fire them all.

Moa’s, again…Most of these are throw away pets that are used for their F2 and nothing else, I get their suppose to be like Guardians but that Heal is bloody useless because you don’t know when your pet will actually use it, and its range is so bloody small chances are you won’t be close enough anyway. This is where having control over more of our other pets abilities would be far better despite you thinking it would be difficult for new “ranger players”

Devourer’s This pet is basically used in dungeons occasionally (I still prefer spiders now) because Dungeon Mechanics probably means most other pets will die, That’s a horrible job for a pet….thakittens only used because other pets suck worse in you PVE environment. The one good ability is maybe Rending Barb, but since its pet Bleeds its not exactly amazing, Oh I forgot…Devourer is actually amazing underwater, well one of them, The one that stuns…and what makes it amazing? The fact thakittens basically using a Spider’s F2 ability instead of its own.

Pigs, Oh pigs…I want to like them, I mean who doesn’t, They have so much utility with their F2’s, but Anet who’s worried about us having trouble controlling more of our pets abilities decides to get this pet the most kitten backwards mechanic in the game…

So not only does the pet summon the stupid object, I have to run over and pick it up, plus my enemy can actually pick it up as well? Seriously? I mean I could somewhat forgive it maybe cause all the pigs have a Knockdown, but good god….Their Knockdown is so bloody obvious not to mention by the time the Pig actually does it the target has already logged for the night. But yea, look at the utility of Pigs and tell me that it wouldn’t be worth a damage cut if the abilities were half way usable.

I mean these are things that should of honestly been taken care of beta, But we’re approaching 1 year and our pets still are basically just used for extra DPS most of the time instead of utility, Cept for Wolves…

Meh, after one year i gave up tbh. It’s quite clear they probably don’t care or are too busy designing new stupid pve kitten. On a side note i might understand them…i mean pvp is such a mess right now with this insane aoe condis and effects spam, they probably have more important things to look at.
The truth is they introduced our pet mechanic way too late and without proper testing only cos it looked c00l. On top of that they added tons of stupid useless pets cos they thought they were c0000l and super fun to collect.
This is the worst pet system i’ve ever seen tbh, i used to be angry about that but i just know now nothing is going to change.
LoL@ pigs f2, you devs seriously…have you even tested this kitten? Do you even lift?

I’d really like to be able to control pet’s special skills, not just one. Other thing, most of abilities are way too slow for dynamic and based around movement combat. I’d really like to use boar, but not with this kind of F2 Imo, we simply lack very good combat tricjs from our pets. That’s why I’m stuck with hound and wolf – both have knockdowns and amazing F2 abilites, uncompareable to other pets. Give pet more utility, reduce the damage and to compensate, remove range requirement from LB and give it some kind of cripple, I’ll be happy ^^

I do not think he is talking about balance here . This is about functionality, or lack of thereof . Simply put , a segment of the game is not working properly . It needs to be optimized first and then we can talk about balance number tweaks .

Pets are a a problem more then they are useful and considering this is a class defining trait , it needs to be fixed ASAP . AI and player controlability I mean

Its not a balance issue, functionality is exactly how I would describe it, We get a bunch of colored swapped pets that really just have different F2’s, and even then, half of them are simply not viable.

We’re told we can’t have control over our other abilities because it’d make the Ranger far to hard, while at the same time havin things like the Pig F2 that make an entire pet line pretty awful in general.

If GW2 is suppose to be a triple A MMO according to them, why does it have a D grade pet system.

Two things need to happen with pets. The first thing that needs to happen is a robust system for programming the pet’s behavior. Make it stored and processed locally if you have to, but give us a way to program the pet to retreat at X% health, use Y skill in the presence of this type of combo field, move away from anything that has the pet on its aggro table, do this when the boss starts a long charge up animation, etc. I want lots of triggers, like status effects, boons, conditions, health, etc. Make it exportable to a code or .txt file that we can post on the forums to help each other out. I’ve seen things like this in games on the SNES, so I’m pretty sure it can be done.

The second thing that we need is the ability to chose the stat distribution on the pets. It doesn’t have to be overly complicated, but I’d like the stat combinations from all the different armors. We sort of had this in GW1 with the hearty, dire, and elder versions of pets, and with the greater importance of gear in this game, I’m not sure why we don’t have anything like this. If anything, it should be more refined in this game.

Do those two things and I think the ranger community itself can take care of a lot of the pet behavior issues.

A third suggestion would be to change some traits so that they benefit the ranger and the pet. Companions might could and should have the opposite effect as well. Traits that effect one or the other should be stronger to compensate for the fact that it doesn’t apply to both. I know this one’s not really related to pets, but they really should have that into account when traits were designed.

What if Pets had Armor, and you could make Armor types with all the different stat sets currently available in the game, Say I wanted a heavy condition based cat pet, I could make some Rabid Stat gear for him

Blah that’s off topic sort of, I want them to fix our kittenty pets that have been that way for almost a year now.

I know that both suggestions were a bit off topic from the original post, but…

I really like the idea of being able to tweak pet stats regardless of pet choice through some sort of armor or collar item or similar. Either that or an evolution sort of system like in GW1. Just something that would allow me to modify my pets just a little.

I also love the idea of being able to program my own AI for my pet. I’ve written AI designs for companion NPCs in other games, such as Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, and the Gambit system in Final Fantasy XII, and really I like having that sort of control over my companion’s AI based on conditional triggers. That would go a long way to improving pet performance in content where they are decidedly problematic (like dungeons). But a system like that would be hard for a lot of people to learn, and I expect a lot of people would be lazy about it too (call me a cynic if you like).

But back to the original topic, pets are definitely not that spectacular; in general I mean. Certain pets are quite good when properly controlled, but the system on the whole, and the “average” pet has so many options that are lacking in so many ways, that I have to wonder why they bothered to create that level of variety if they weren’t going to make them all reasonably useful. There are a few that are decent for various purposes, and those few are used all the time by virtually every ranger. The rest are just mediocre (at best), and are “throw away” pets to use Xsorus’s phrase. When the game is designed so that our unique class mechanic is based on these pets, having a good half of them be so un-useful that no one wants to ever use them (or even tame them unless they are a completionist) is just not acceptable.

Having said that though, I really think the pet AI system needs to be improved at a slightly higher priority than improving individual pets or pet families to make them more desirable.

Here’s an example of good pet system:
Pets have their own inventory, can learn spells, can be transformed temporarily or permanently into other creatures by feeding them certain fish, sell your unwanted inventory in town and will return with requested items from your shopping list. (Torchlight 2)

I pretty much abandoned all hope of pets getting fixed. They are a fire-and-forget weapon in its’ current state and do not feel like a tool at your disposal as much as a hindrance to your profession. The old Quickening Zephyr made the pet somewhat more reactive because the Quickness boon helped getting off a pet F2 skill in an acceptable timeframe. Most pet F2 skills are simply inferior to the more commonly used pets and the few that are acceptable are plagued by bugs or poorly programmed pet AI.

Even after having said all that, they still contribute to the Ranger’s damage (yet the damage does not show on the combat log.) The best way to make pets work is to be as little dependant on them as possible and use them for the toolset a few useful pets bring (such as the Wolf’s F2.)

It is a shame, really. Thinking back: I was really excited about pets being integrated with the Ranger profession because in GW1 they were optional and only useful if you built your setup specifically around them (and even then you were giving up superior options for dependency on an NPC.) The one situation in which they shined was as fire-and-forget meat walls in Barrage/Pet teams. I guess I got my hopes up too much for thinking that mandatory pets made them synergize better with the profession.

Instead they became the once more intrusive fire-and-forget meat wall.

Pets are an afterthought really. Even as a player, we don’t have any real attachment to them. We send them off to their death, moments before their head is ripped off we push a button to swap to the next unnamed pet and repeat. Well I’m overstating it a little, I really do treat my pets more as fire and forget missiles or a random DOT more than I treat it as an integral part of the class.

But yea, before they bother with trying to make bad pets better, they really need to resolve a lot of the mechanical problems that still plague pets in general.

Things like…
Pets still not being able to hit moving targets reliably.
Pets needing their skills to be instant cast so they can hit things reliably.
Pets not properly scaling with gear (this is the main cry for nerfs on this class for example).
Pet skill RNG is completely uncalled for in a PvP centric game.

And lets not even get started on spirits. They should remove every single one of them from the game, give Rangers the staff weapon, and rebalance Spirits to act just like Necromancer wells. Only then would it be justified in them not being able to move without traits.

giving a ranger a staff would make them druids, would it not?

Pets are so useless when there is nothing in Beastmastery. You end up sacrificing a lot if you put anything in that trait line so why even bother?

There is no upside to buffing your pet since it is so dumb it cant hit anything or even shoot off skills quick enough. (Just like if you have your mainhand sword on autoattack it is locked onto completing the previous action first).

Also, they still get 2 shotted or even one shotted by champions and bosses which immediately renders your ranger useless.

Rangers need to be able to control all of their pets abilities for them to be viable. Like remap every skill to the F1-4, and F5-8 should be the original commands. The players can come up with their own key modifiers to make themselves comfortable.

Rangers are even denied party spots because of the fact that pets are soooooo bad.

I just want my drake to face the target I have when I hit f2. I’d live with that small change lol

JorneMormel.9850:

I pretty much abandoned all hope of pets getting fixed. They are a fire-and-forget weapon in its’ current state and do not feel like a tool at your disposal as much as a hindrance to your profession. The old Quickening Zephyr made the pet somewhat more reactive because the Quickness boon helped getting off a pet F2 skill in an acceptable timeframe. Most pet F2 skills are simply inferior to the more commonly used pets and the few that are acceptable are plagued by bugs or poorly programmed pet AI.

Even after having said all that, they still contribute to the Ranger’s damage (yet the damage does not show on the combat log.) The best way to make pets work is to be as little dependant on them as possible and use them for the toolset a few useful pets bring (such as the Wolf’s F2.)

It is a shame, really. Thinking back: I was really excited about pets being integrated with the Ranger profession because in GW1 they were optional and only useful if you built your setup specifically around them (and even then you were giving up superior options for dependency on an NPC.) The one situation in which they shined was as fire-and-forget meat walls in Barrage/Pet teams. I guess I got my hopes up too much for thinking that mandatory pets made them synergize better with the profession.

Instead they became the once more intrusive fire-and-forget meat wall.

Actually their role in B/P teams was as fodder for the minion necros that created the meat shield for the team which anet put an end to when they made pets leave unexploitable corpses in every game mode to combat minion builds in pvp.

Funny how history repeats itself sometimes.

Pets actually because pretty good by the end but they always had the problem that sins ran into in that you had to pretty much devote your entire bar to the pet and would have next to nothing to keep the ranger alive which meant anyone with a brain would just kill the ranger since the pet died when you did. It’s ultimately what kept it from ever being a decent pvp/endpve build even when they had more tank and spank than a warrior.

keenlam.4753:

Here’s an example of good pet system:
Pets have their own inventory, can learn spells, can be transformed temporarily or permanently into other creatures by feeding them certain fish, sell your unwanted inventory in town and will return with requested items from your shopping list. (Torchlight 2)

This. So much this.
All of my this.

I want to go buy Torchlight 2 now.

1. Pets are fixed because Devs don’t think they are broken. Remember John Sharp saying two bears can rip the face off of warriors while the rangers afk during a stog not too long ago?? I do. I loathe his views on the pet and rangers.

2. They won’t fix pets because they’d have to admit they were wrong. They either don’t have the map power or ability to fix them.

3. Someone gave a great suggestion: when you make a ranger you can choose either Preparations or Pets. I went and read up on GW1 Preps and I want this badly. So much. I am not holding hope for it though.

Over all, I’m losing interest in this game between Anet’s refusal to replace or perma-stow pets and the lack-luster updates in the Living Story content.

Atherakhia.4086:

Pets are an afterthought really. Even as a player, we don’t have any real attachment to them. We send them off to their death, moments before their head is ripped off we push a button to swap to the next unnamed pet and repeat. Well I’m overstating it a little, I really do treat my pets more as fire and forget missiles or a random DOT more than I treat it as an integral part of the class.

But yea, before they bother with trying to make bad pets better, they really need to resolve a lot of the mechanical problems that still plague pets in general.

Things like…
Pets still not being able to hit moving targets reliably.
Pets needing their skills to be instant cast so they can hit things reliably.
Pets not properly scaling with gear (this is the main cry for nerfs on this class for example).
Pet skill RNG is completely uncalled for in a PvP centric game.

I think the biggest problem with pets in a PVE setting is survivability. The entire basis of the combat system, from the ground up, is avoiding the attacks that are sent at you. We have dodging, we have blocking, evades built into weapon and utility skills, distortion…and, because of this, major enemies can pretty much one-hit-kill anything in front of them that doesn’t avoid the hit. Into this combat system they introduce a profession that relies heavily on an AI NPC that utterly lacks each and every one of these vital abilities. It has no choice but to face tank every attack directed towards it. Just what the hell was Arena Net thinking? These pets are perfect…for Guild Wars 1. They address the biggest problems pets had in the game: taking up half or more of your skill bar, lack of variety in mechanics (bears being identical to birds, for example), preventing you from taking good healing skills (unless you brought Heal as One). They just happen to address none of the requirements for a character in Guild Wars 2: tons of blocking and dodging or being completely expendable.

To add to another part of what’s missing to the whole pet mechanic; useful traits that interact with the pet. Most of the Master tier traits for Beastmastery are completely and totally useless.

(Slightly offtopic) In fact, Beastmastery seems to be competing with Skirmishing for “trait lines mostly used for their passive effects” (unless with the Skirmishing example you’re running traps).

Dumping 30 points into Beastmastery doesn’t really increase functionality or improve mechanics at all, and barely provides any interactive benefits other than maybe Zephyrs Speed. This is a HUGE part of the problem (imo) because all Beastmastery really serves to do is increase healing and make the pet hit harder, which, while valuable, provides a lot kitten nuses than what most other classes mechanic specific trait line offer in terms of affecting gameplay, which leaves the whole entire pet system feeling stale, knowing that traiting for pets is only maybe increasing their survivability, and shaving seconds off of their kill times on motionless targets.

Besides my 2 cents on it, I’m entirely agreed that the pet system is in need of mechanic reworks.

I am in favor of many of the ideas mentioned about making pet’s more customizable. Though, programming improvements must be a nightmare for the developers. I can understand that, so pet pathing is probably not going to be fixed any time soon, nor will we see most of these reasonable possibilities. The controls are sluggish, and as it has already been stated many times before, pet’s can’t hit moving targets. This being said a moderately easy (not fix, but improvement) change would be to alter the F2 skills. I agree with the poster that they are definitely lackluster and nullify the use of most of the pets, compounded of course with the ai system. I think it was mentioned before, but why not eliminate any activation of F2 skills, and have the beastmaster line trait points attributed reduce the cooldown of the F2 skill (or to be greedy all pet skills) and just remove the trait(s) to that effect.
Another possibility (or in addition) would be to grant additional quickness to the pets with points traited.
Though it seems this may make them OP, but in actuality it might allow some hits of the pet to connect. I have sampled the quickness grandmaster and the pet may get 2 hits in within the 3 seconds, because the pet re-positions before attacking even when they spawn at the target’s location. IT"S NOT A SOLUTION to the bad ai system, but it seems to me to be an improvement that would not be a difficult programming fix.

These changes still do not change the lousy F2’s, but are the F2’s (aside from pigs) still viable if they actually connect?

The pets don’t need advanced AI. They need 70-80% of what enemy mobs have. A basic enemy mob will walk up to you, turn to face you, and start an attack skill. A ranger pet will walk up to where an enemy was 2 seconds ago, not bother to change facing, and do an F2 attack into thin air. It’s awful and that at least should be fixed.

I love how if I have an enemy targeted and hit my wolf F2, my wolf stays in place and howls at me. But if I hit my bear F2, the bear runs to the enemy and tries to apply his condition remover to the enemy, rather than me. Makes sense.

I run a bear to serve as a target dummy in zerg fights, sending him in as a decoy to draw enemy fire for my side and occasionally I can get that F2 to work….somehow. I know how annoying it is to have to tab-target through dozens of useless pets (that aren’t even worth shooting at unless you have no other targets) to get a human to shoot at. I try to return that courtesy to the opposition.

I also figure a live bear is worth more than a dead wolf, despite the otherwise superior damage of the wolf. Bear can tank guards pretty well for solo camp taking.

But yeah, I agree bears suck.

Once a pet gets within range of an enemy, and their movement speeds match, the pet should just stick to them. As soon as the enemy moves the pet should be right there to bite them in the kitten . Either that or increase the range of all their melee attacks to account for movement.

I really just want a “Lone Wolf” grandmaster trait: Damage increased by 12%, toughness and precision increased by 7%, pets are permanently stored.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

…
I think the biggest problem with pets in a PVE setting is survivability. The entire basis of the combat system, from the ground up, is avoiding the attacks that are sent at you. We have dodging, we have blocking, evades built into weapon and utility skills, distortion…and, because of this, major enemies can pretty much one-hit-kill anything in front of them that doesn’t avoid the hit. Into this combat system they introduce a profession that relies heavily on an AI NPC that utterly lacks each and every one of these vital abilities. It has no choice but to face tank every attack directed towards it.

^This.
Pets don’t have much damage mitigation. I would really like to change to protection on dodge roll trait to give pet evasion. That’s 100% dmg mitigation instead of 33%. Might need some balancing but would really have with pet survivability.

keenlam.4753:

Unholy Pillager.3791:

…
I think the biggest problem with pets in a PVE setting is survivability. The entire basis of the combat system, from the ground up, is avoiding the attacks that are sent at you. We have dodging, we have blocking, evades built into weapon and utility skills, distortion…and, because of this, major enemies can pretty much one-hit-kill anything in front of them that doesn’t avoid the hit. Into this combat system they introduce a profession that relies heavily on an AI NPC that utterly lacks each and every one of these vital abilities. It has no choice but to face tank every attack directed towards it.

^This.
Pets don’t have much damage mitigation. I would really like to change to protection on dodge roll trait to give pet evasion. That’s 100% dmg mitigation instead of 33%. Might need some balancing but would really have with pet survivability.

Allow the pet to evade when you do isn’t really going to solve any problems. There are scenarios when the Ranger may not need to evade because they’re ranged and the pet would. There are scenarios when the Ranger needs to evade and the pet wouldn’t.

If you were to give anything to the pet on dodge, I would prefer aegis. It’s not great because of all the AE and such so the pet may still get smashed, but blunting the first hit may be enough to keep it alive.

Alternatively, just give rangers a 1200 range pet :/

Anyone know what happened to Robert? Did he get fired or something for acknowledging that the game doesn’t have the best implementation of pets since gameboy pokemons came out?

I do believe he is working on Living Story dungeons. And after a lot of the posts here in response to his, I’d be surprised if he ever posted here again.

Kasei.8726:

I really just want a “Lone Wolf” grandmaster trait: Damage increased by 12%, toughness and precision increased by 7%, pets are permanently stored.

A great many people want to perma-stow pets, especially during combat. Far more than people who think we should always have the pets… I’m willing to bet its a 100:1 ratio at minimum.

In Warhammer Online, both the Squig Herder and the White Lion could take up a talent that gave them a damage increase if they didn’t have their out.

I personally couldn’t care less about the pet. If they want it out or if they allow us to stow it. That said, there’s no way in the world the pet should account for such a large portion of the class’ damage when it’s so difficult to control.

Obviously I would stow it permanently if given the chance, but if not, at least make its damage contribution more balanced. 50:50 is too much. 75:25 would probably be too much!

Atherakhia.4086:

Allow the pet to evade when you do isn’t really going to solve any problems. There are scenarios when the Ranger may not need to evade because they’re ranged and the pet would. There are scenarios when the Ranger needs to evade and the pet wouldn’t.

If you were to give anything to the pet on dodge, I would prefer aegis. It’s not great because of all the AE and such so the pet may still get smashed, but blunting the first hit may be enough to keep it alive.

Alternatively, just give rangers a 1200 range pet :/

I actually thought about Aegis as well since someone already brought it up in some other thread. However, i think evasion is better because it’s an instant effect that rewards your good timing and awareness of the pet.

Comparing to Protection on dodge, it’s a buff but it also has a trade-off that makes it balanced. And that is exactly like you said, there will be times you waste your dodge to save your pet. Overall, you will need to dodge twice more often. But giving how the current design forces us to take good care of the pet, this would be a welcoming change.

I just know I wouldn’t waste a dodge to save mysefl to dodge for my pet. I’d sooner swap the pet and send in a new one. At least if the thing gains an Aegis when we dodge, it may sitll be there in the future when the pet really does need to avoid something.

But in all reality, pets should just be changed to take 85% less damage from AE’s and can’t be specifically targetted by bosses in PvE. Especially since PvE/WvW/sPvP can be split.

I still have to spam my f2 to get my pet to use skills.

Figure’s, I haven’t posted in a long while but I see things still have not been addressed.

thrice.9184:

I still have to spam my f2 to get my pet to use skills.

Figure, i haven’t posted in a long while but I see things still have not been addressed.

If your pet is attacking when you use F2, I think the reason it can take a while is because it has to wait to finish it current attack before it does the F2 skill. Just like with players, although generally you can override stuff to do something new but it can still take a second to switch, however with pets who knows if that is even possible.

I know for me it always waits till after it’s current attack though, which can really screw you in a bad situation. >:[

Hellsrage.4705:

thrice.9184:

I still have to spam my f2 to get my pet to use skills.

Figure, i haven’t posted in a long while but I see things still have not been addressed.

If your pet is attacking when you use F2, I think the reason it can take a while is because it has to wait to finish it current attack before it does the F2 skill. Just like with players, although generally you can override stuff to do something new but it can still take a second to switch, however with pets who knows if that is even possible.

I know for me it always waits till after it’s current attack though, which can really screw you in a bad situation. >:[

Since we have to roll with pets cause Anet SAYS so – I decided to try and make these meat-bags useful somehow but even then……

I hear ya, but when a melee decides to stick to me like glue and wont give me breathing room and my utilities are almost gone – I NEEED my bird to blind the crap out of it – ASAP, NOW, YESTERDAY – Not 4 – 8 seconds later AFTER repeated spammed f2’s

Right… all the F2 abilities should tigger instantly regardless of what’s going on. The vast majority of them (anything more than making your pets next melee attack do something like birds and cats have) are absolutely useless.

Atherakhia.4086:

Right… all the F2 abilities should tigger instantly regardless of what’s going on. The vast majority of them (anything more than making your pets next melee attack do something like birds and cats have) are absolutely useless.

Here’s a familiar scenario

My pet just used one of there skills.
Ok, Now I need you to use your F2 (Click, click, click, click, click, click) OMG use the f2 skill bird!
BUY ME TIME!

Arrrrrrgh

Proceeds to try and save self from useless partner

My Utilities are now burnt out.

(Click, click, click, click, click, click) Bird blinds finally when im low health.

This is not working, im fed up.

Hands down the worst petsystem in any mmo I have ever played…
The game is so good otherwise that I really dont get it.

Here is no bond to a pet whatsoever – they are just bad programmed skills to me…
Coming from a guy who always plays the animal pet class of a game

The thing that I hate the worst is when I am trying to run through enemies with my pet stowed and I get hit my pet pops out and starts fighting thus putting me into combat mode and slowing my movement down. Then it proceeds to fight until I’m far enough away for it realize that it should disengage combat and follow me. The damage is done though and I’m already moving slower and I have to then micro manage the darn thing. I also wish that my weapon stayed stowed until I actually use an offensive skill instead of automatically getting pulled out when attacked.

To me the pet acts like an anchor at the most inconvenient of times.

I vote for a way to permanently stow the pet until I want it to come out and/or for it to be smart enough to know when I am actually fighting and then follow my lead without hesitation.

We dont even have a proper pet UI. I want numbers on the pet hp bar and I dont want to have to click on my pet while in combat just to see its buffs and debuffs.

You have to understand that anet is very busy on adding new temporary content. be patient and give them a couple of your, in 2015 pets should be fine

Your sarcasm is appreciated, but the fact remains that they should have made pets either optional (best choice) or at least somewhat reliable before releasing the game in the first place. I certainly don’t think the temporary content is nearly as important as a fundamentally flawed, constantly malfunctioning core profession mechanic.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Your sarcasm is appreciated, but the fact remains that they should have made pets either optional (best choice) or at least somewhat reliable before releasing the game in the first place. I certainly don’t think the temporary content is nearly as important as a fundamentally flawed, constantly malfunctioning core profession mechanic.

one thing i just cannot compute is why/how the hell gw1, released in 05 pets had no problems hitting a target and in gw2, a game released in 2012 they can’t even make their AI hit a moving target… Their AI is the worst in the industry and im not exaggerating one bit here. Pets can’t hit ~~~~, minions attacking enemies you weren’t, clones spawning and attacking targets you weren’t like wtf is this? Inacceptable for our day and age but its ignored/accepted because its guild wars or because its an MMO? C’mon now, da hellllll

I think the biggest reason pets had no such problems in GW1 was that combat was so much more static. Even if pets missed targets moving away from them, it wasn’t such a problem because the target had to stop in order to attack or use a skill.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

I think the biggest reason pets had no such problems in GW1 was that combat was so much more static. Even if pets missed targets moving away from them, it wasn’t such a problem because the target had to stop in order to attack or use a skill.

Nah its not because of that, pets were hitting moving targets no problem. The thing gw1 had and gw2 doesn’t is one thing, rubberbanding damage or whatever its called, i have no idea. What was happening to pets and you is that you could use a melee skill, during its activation time your target moves out of skill range but it would still register its damage. GW2 doesn’t have that and i don’t want it on players but i think it should return for pets.

please fix:

Auto-cancel + Mini cooldown on F2 if you try to use it while the pet is in any kind of animation (including running animations) There are times when I’ll try to get a pig pet to spawn an item for me to carry, OUT OF COMBAT, nothing distracting him, but because I didn’t come to a complete stop and wait for him to stop moving too, the F2 cancels. What. It’s even worse in combat. When you’re fighting another player, it’s about timing, it’s about I NEED IT NOW. Do you not understand this? I can’t wait for an AI to make up its mind. I press the skill the skill needs to activate—on the target, which brings me to the next point…

Pets do not face targets when you command their F2. Things like Drake breaths or Moa screeches in pvp/wvw environments are IMPOSSIBLE to land, there is too much movement. Do you not have any Ranger playtesters? These skills are not usable! I can’t tell you how many times I have watched my River Drake start charging up the breath, the enemy ends up behind him by this point, and so what does he do? Instead of flipping around and firing the breath at the new location of the target, who is NOT currently in “Evade”, he just moved, that’s it… the drake instead cancels the whole F2. Just cancels it. It even happens in pve. I can recreate it for anyone who wants to see it.

Why can’t my pet autoface the target, at all times, without fail, unless they are stealthed? Is there a reason this was not included?

There are more problems. There are just plain poorly implemented things like Pigs. the long cast times of pet attacks in general, Birds with their horrible attack pattern, and all those issues just add to the sheer annoyance that is using pets.

That’s really the core of it, anet. Pets are not a seamless part of our characters. They’re an uncontrollable, hard to wrangle, unresponsive, poorly done, problem that taunts us by constantly reminding us how effective we could be, if only that Pink Moa daze was something to be relied upon. If only.

We don’t Rampage as One with them, we drag them along, most Rangers by this point, don’t expect much, try to get them to work when there’s nothing else we can do and they always disappoint. Maybe I wouldn’t have died if the Wolf had dropped everything he was doing to use his fear howl the moment I pressed F2 but he was too busy making sure his footsteps were perfectly animated.

Our core mechanic, our class mechanic… is BROKEN.

…I swear I come to these forums every month or so and write out the same rant, pleading to the devs. Really. You can check my post history I’m sure everything above was already said. I even left some stuff out this time I bet.

How long is it going to take?

Also, I think this has been mentioned ages ago.

Intimidation Training – Activated F2 for canines and spiders cause cripple

Whats the point of crippling if the pet already has a CC (knockdown, immobilise, fear)?

Also, please Please PLEASE Anet, just merge all the “Master” BM traits together so there’s room for new traits. I’m sorry, but the current BM traits are… crap.