I’ll start this off by stating what we already know. We need more pet commands! There are many excellent ideas floating around on how to give us more ways to talk to our faithful companion, and here is one more to add to the list.
The main challenge is getting more commands to fit into F1 to F4. In another topic I jokingly brought up a game called Mount and Blade that combined the fun of a first person hack and slash and the epic feel of commanding large groups of enemies on the field of battle. It accomplished this with an interesting use of the F1 to F4 keys. This is how I’d transfer that system to GW2.
The basic premise is that clicking an F key opens a mini bar of commands that you click a second F key to activate. In this case clicking the F1 key would cause your next F click to activate one of four different movement commands. Clicking F2 would allow your next F click to activate one of three pet abilities. In the end the commands would look something like this.
F1 -> F1 = Attack target.
F1 -> F2 = Return to me.
F1 -> F3 = Move to target location.
F1 -> F4 = Leap to target location.
F1/F3 would allow the player to designate an area for the pet to go to and remain until given a new command, which would let the player keep the pet out of AoE heavy areas.
F1/F4 would allow the player to designate an area they want the pet to leap toward, which would work similar to any leap skill in that it’d let the pet jump over small obstacles and gaps that a player character could normally cross using leap skills or the jump key. Limited to 300-400 range movement maximum. Possibly with a five second cool down. I want it available when the ranger needs it but don’t want it spammed as a pet gap closer, I just want it to let pets deal with obstacles and small drops.
F2 -> F1 = Pet special attack.
F2 -> F2 = Pet species skill 1.
F2 -> F3 = Pet species skill 2.
F2 -> F4 = Cancel command.
This is pretty straight forward. It lets the ranger choose when the pet uses ALL pet skills minus the auto attack. F2/F4 would allow the ranger to cancel their F2 command incase the ranger changes their mind or clicked it on accident so they don’t have to use an ability if they decide not to.
This leaves F3 empty, as F1/F2 already covers what it use to do. So what to put here? Could be anything! Personally, this is what I’d do with it.
F3 = “Defend yourself!” Causes the pet to block incoming attacks for three seconds. The pet channels the effect and doesn’t move for the duration. If the pet is standing in a red circle the pet will automatically try to move out of said circle while blocking. 10 second cool down.
This would give the ranger an option to have the pet protect itself which would greatly improve pet survivability. I made it a block instead of an evade because I liked the idea of potentially using the pet to body block incoming attacks if you’re rascally enough to set it up right and stand behind the pet at the right time. Could be an evade too. Either works.
And of course F4 is pet swap as it always has been.
So what do you guys think of the suggestion? Too complicated? Too powerful giving the ranger access to all the pet skills? Post your thoughts!