Guild Wars 2

Hey everybody! Seeing as how I don’t really see any posts from anybody who participated in the ranger CDI showing off when the idea was first presented to us, and seeing as how some unconfirmed information from reddit has relayed to us that we will potentially getting aspects and glyphs, I wanted to share some relevant information that was brought up in the CDI by the devs regarding aspects.

Hopefully somebody appreciates these quotes, all from devs:

As Orca pointed out, some people aren’t as fond of the pets. The idea of the buff would be to appease everyone. Also, what if stowing the pet and having an aspect gave the Ranger some kind of aura that communicated to others they are in that “aspect”? Would it still feel like the pet was a part of you if them being stowed affected your physical appearance?
If not, I don’t think the aspect idea would be a necessity for players. There are definitely things that need to be done to fix Ranger pets in general, and it’s something we are well aware of. If we fixed those things, but maybe also added in the aspect idea, I think we’d be in a spot where everyone would be pleased, no?
Just musing!

That is exactly my point. We want to make sure we’ve done everything we can to make the pet desirable before we consider any options for those that don’t want to play with the pet as much.

We kicked around the idea of giving the ranger an “aspect of _______” which we moved to a new thread because it is elaborate and should be a single topic in itself. The idea is that it would give the pet more utility with swapping/stowing, but it wouldn’t retire the pet completely.

…The reason why I latched onto the aspect idea was because it was an option that seemed we could maybe work around. Rather than having to rebalance the whole class, we’d just have to balance the aspects to be similar to what the pet does damage-wise. That seemed a little more viable…

…The aspects I think were a little different. They talked about having specific bonuses based on the pet that the player was using. That is different from just giving a damage boost, which could end up being difficult to balance.

For all of those concept-crafters out there, enjoy!

Appreciate the re-quotes from the Devs on regards to Aspects. Even though I was present during the Ranger CDI, I felt there was no need to post anything about this. It’s nice that Anet took that suggestion and later utilized it for an Elite Spec, but I am more apt to wait for the reveal and test it during a beta test.

As much as I would like to concept-craft, conception seems finalized on Anet’s part for what they want the Druid to be and have. All that is left is testing it for tweaking numbers and how skills and traits will function. Cheers, though.

Much appreciated. Thanx

jcbroe.4329:

Hey everybody! Seeing as how I don’t really see any posts from anybody who participated in the ranger CDI showing off when the idea was first presented to us, and seeing as how some unconfirmed information from reddit has relayed to us that we will potentially getting aspects and glyphs, I wanted to share some relevant information that was brought up in the CDI by the devs regarding aspects.

Hopefully somebody appreciates these quotes, all from devs:

As Orca pointed out, some people aren’t as fond of the pets. The idea of the buff would be to appease everyone. Also, what if stowing the pet and having an aspect gave the Ranger some kind of aura that communicated to others they are in that “aspect”? Would it still feel like the pet was a part of you if them being stowed affected your physical appearance?
If not, I don’t think the aspect idea would be a necessity for players. There are definitely things that need to be done to fix Ranger pets in general, and it’s something we are well aware of. If we fixed those things, but maybe also added in the aspect idea, I think we’d be in a spot where everyone would be pleased, no?
Just musing!

That is exactly my point. We want to make sure we’ve done everything we can to make the pet desirable before we consider any options for those that don’t want to play with the pet as much.

We kicked around the idea of giving the ranger an “aspect of _______” which we moved to a new thread because it is elaborate and should be a single topic in itself. The idea is that it would give the pet more utility with swapping/stowing, but it wouldn’t retire the pet completely.

…The reason why I latched onto the aspect idea was because it was an option that seemed we could maybe work around. Rather than having to rebalance the whole class, we’d just have to balance the aspects to be similar to what the pet does damage-wise. That seemed a little more viable…

…The aspects I think were a little different. They talked about having specific bonuses based on the pet that the player was using. That is different from just giving a damage boost, which could end up being difficult to balance.

For all of those concept-crafters out there, enjoy!

when was all this said? have a link?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/cdi/Collaborative-Development-Ranger-Profession

Knighthonor.4061:

when was all this said? have a link?

You’re welcome to sift through the past. A red-post from Karl also shows that a suggestion lead to the design of Poison Master.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/cdi/Collaborative-Development-Ranger-Profession/first

Edit: Someone beat me to it

Knight;

I see that you’ve posted about this on the reddit, but I have no idea why you didn’t just link it to THIS THREAD lol. Linking people to the full CDI is just going to irritate people, even though you’ve followed up with my list of quotes.

jcbroe.4329:

Knight;

I see that you’ve posted about this on the reddit, but I have no idea why you didn’t just link it to THIS THREAD lol. Linking people to the full CDI is just going to irritate people, even though you’ve followed up with my list of quotes.

Its old, and shows that its been an idea on the table. Also mentioned in the same breath of pet replacement which is argued regarding aspect mechanics.

Ok this is could be pretty interesting actually. So my guess is that they make pet stow permanent in combat and bind it to F5. While pet is stowed (going off the datamined image):
F1 = Canine Aspect
F2 = Bird Aspect
F3 = Drake Aspect(?)
F4 = Bear Aspect
F5 = unstow pet

Swapping to an Aspect would activate its ability. Aspect swapping would then go on a cooldown. You gain a passive effect while in an Aspect. After the Aspect cooldown has ended, you can swap to another Aspect or activate the same one again. Let’s say Aspect swapping has a 20s cooldown by default (16s traited).

Canine Ability: AoE 2s Fear in 600 range around Ranger
Canine Passive: 250 power.

Bird Ability: AoE 15s Swiftness in 600 range around Ranger
Bird Passive: 250 precision.

Drake Ability: AoE 5s Confusion(x5) in 600 range around Ranger
Drake Passive: 250 toughness

Bear Ability: AoE clear 2 conditions in 600 range around Ranger
Bear Passive: 250 vitality

That’s very similar to what was posted in the CDI

It honestly could be anything at this point. Maybe ANet will give us a little tease this Friday during the Warrior montage hint hint.

After skimming the developer responses from the CDI, and assuming that what they’ve hinted at there has carried over to the Druid and formed the basis of its specialization, I think I have an idea as to where they’re going with this.

All the elite specializations so far have focused on enhancing the existing class mechanics, right? So instead of providing an alternative to the pet by creating permanent Stowing, I think they’re going to build off its permanent presence.

My idea:

-The aspects will be tied to pet family. One overarching aspect, with associated buffs, per family. So having a feline out would give you the Feline Aspect, no matter if you used a jungle stalker or a jaguar.

-This allows you to continue to use pets in builds for their specific command skills. Creating an aspect per pet, i.e. “Aspect of the Jungle Stalker” and “Aspect of the Jaguar” would be both too time intensive and also potentially remove pets completely from play, as I doubt they’d give literally every single pet an associated aspect.

-Immediate powerful buff/effect upon swapping pets (possibly PBAoEs included, judging from those datamined images?), followed by a constant, less powerful buff afterwards. This solves the issue on how the pets and aspects will work together and how the F binds will work. F4 now swaps both your pet and aspect, everything else will probably stay the same.

-The precedent for two aspects already exists in the Revenant. I haven’t been following its development closely as I just got back from a real long break from the game, but I do know there are multiple Legends available to it, but they can only equip two at a time, correct? Same thing here. Multiple aspects to choose from, two equipped.

-The Druid trait line now becomes about the pet buffing the ranger. This forms a nice reverse of Beastmastery, which is all about the ranger buffing the pet, while at the same time potentially opening up some interesting build options. I wouldn’t really know about that though, I’m not a theorist. The lore for “druid” fits into this nicely as well, as the druid in many different literature and games has always been a “man of nature”, benefiting heavily from its fauna and flora.

-The pet now becomes a “buff machine” with a command skill, which counteracts the notorious AI and the issues many people have had with it, and how it seems to fight against the ranger’s potential. Don’t like the pet and still think it’s bad? At least it now has some powerful buffs for you.

-Potential downsides would simply be the Druid specialization becoming the go-to choice for rangers. Many of the other classes have been having that discussion too, though, so I suppose we can cross that bridge if we ever get there.

Obviously, this is all 100% speculation. The CDI was a year ago and everything could’ve changed between now and then. I’m probably dirt wrong. But if this holds any merit at all, we may very well become Udyr plus vicious snarling beast.

Thoughts?

Shame that the CDI felt largely like a giant waste of time… That being said every time I read this line “Also, what if stowing the pet and having an aspect gave the Ranger some kind of aura that communicated to others they are in that “aspect”?” I get some jiggly feelings in the stomach that the perma-stow option will one day come true despite the whiners and “You need to play how I want you to play” crowd that doesn’t want anyone to have pet stowing options because THEY don’t want pet stowing options so no one should have them..

There wasn’t enough information from the data mining to go very far reliably.

Guess that will be a point of future Elite specs. Don’t want to play that way? Pick another spec. Beats re-rolling, I guess.

Just keep in mind that Allie Murdock was just Community Coordinator, that mean she was not a dev and she was not responsible for any decision in the game, her job was to deal with the community and filter the information that reach the devs.

BTW I don’t think that we’ll get an aspect for each pet family we have, that would be nuts, imagine having 11 different aspects (I’m counting shark and armor fish as “fish”) and if we also get glyph as skill, each one usually have an affect depending on the aspect so 5 glyph would be 55 different effects …

3 Aspects sounds more reasonable so we’ll have 15 effects from the glyph skills, probably a DPS, a support and a tank/cc effects from the aspects.

Olcon.9506:

After skimming the developer responses from the CDI, and assuming that what they’ve hinted at there has carried over to the Druid and formed the basis of its specialization, I think I have an idea as to where they’re going with this.

All the elite specializations so far have focused on enhancing the existing class mechanics, right? So instead of providing an alternative to the pet by creating permanent Stowing, I think they’re going to build off its permanent presence.

My idea:

-The aspects will be tied to pet family. One overarching aspect, with associated buffs, per family. So having a feline out would give you the Feline Aspect, no matter if you used a jungle stalker or a jaguar.

-This allows you to continue to use pets in builds for their specific command skills. Creating an aspect per pet, i.e. “Aspect of the Jungle Stalker” and “Aspect of the Jaguar” would be both too time intensive and also potentially remove pets completely from play, as I doubt they’d give literally every single pet an associated aspect.

-Immediate powerful buff/effect upon swapping pets (possibly PBAoEs included, judging from those datamined images?), followed by a constant, less powerful buff afterwards. This solves the issue on how the pets and aspects will work together and how the F binds will work. F4 now swaps both your pet and aspect, everything else will probably stay the same.

-The precedent for two aspects already exists in the Revenant. I haven’t been following its development closely as I just got back from a real long break from the game, but I do know there are multiple Legends available to it, but they can only equip two at a time, correct? Same thing here. Multiple aspects to choose from, two equipped.

-The Druid trait line now becomes about the pet buffing the ranger. This forms a nice reverse of Beastmastery, which is all about the ranger buffing the pet, while at the same time potentially opening up some interesting build options. I wouldn’t really know about that though, I’m not a theorist. The lore for “druid” fits into this nicely as well, as the druid in many different literature and games has always been a “man of nature”, benefiting heavily from its fauna and flora.

-The pet now becomes a “buff machine” with a command skill, which counteracts the notorious AI and the issues many people have had with it, and how it seems to fight against the ranger’s potential. Don’t like the pet and still think it’s bad? At least it now has some powerful buffs for you.

-Potential downsides would simply be the Druid specialization becoming the go-to choice for rangers. Many of the other classes have been having that discussion too, though, so I suppose we can cross that bridge if we ever get there.

Obviously, this is all 100% speculation. The CDI was a year ago and everything could’ve changed between now and then. I’m probably dirt wrong. But if this holds any merit at all, we may very well become Udyr plus vicious snarling beast.

Thoughts?

Same thoughts I have. However, maybe one aspect for one pet family is too much designing effort. Since the original Glyph has 4 “aspects”, I guess Druid will have no more than 4 aspects.

Belzebu.3912:

…BTW I don’t think that we’ll get an aspect for each pet family we have, that would be nuts, imagine having 11 different aspects (I’m counting shark and armor fish as “fish”) and if we also get glyph as skill, each one usually have an affect depending on the aspect so 5 glyph would be 55 different effects …

3 Aspects sounds more reasonable so we’ll have 15 effects from the glyph skills, probably a DPS, a support and a tank/cc effects from the aspects.

Yeah, I’m thinking the same. So, judging by the datamined Druid image; Hawk, Wolf and Bear or they also could be the Zephyrite’s Aspects; Wind, Lightning and Sun. Either way, excited to see the results.

I’m not convinced about some of the Aspect ideas in this thread. One thing Anet has been abundantly, stubbornly clear on is that you will use your pets no matter what. That they have no intention of having perma-stow.

The data-mined images show pictures of three animals. That’s all it shows. It could be anything. Those animals could have been chosen to represent pets in general, because they’re notable and easily recognisable animals.

Unless Anet has had a MASSIVE shift in their design paradigm, the pet won’t be stowed. The general feeling from I got from the CDI was that the pet would be sort of merged with your character, temporarily most likely, and resulting in a buff that would be visible like engineer kits.
Now, this would require a huge amount of work from anet, adding all those appearence changes or icons, something I can’t imagine them doing. Sorry to say this but Anet’s general attitude for QoL fixes and such (especially where ranger is concerned, it took them thee years to fix the engi hobo-sacks ffs) so far has been “as little as possible, as rarely as possible” and I don’t see that changing either. So I imagine the most likely thing you can expect for druid is an F5 that replaces your pet with a glowy icon, accompanied by a pitifully weak damage buff, on a timer with a massive cooldown.

I just hope they prove me wrong.

As the Old Guard leaves Anet things will change. Although, as long as Jon Peters is employed on the Dev design/balance team I don’t think we’ll get perma stow as he has been a vocal proponent (along with John Sharp) that Rangers should always have pets. Now, that being said, Devs have always been clear that the Ranger will always have it’s pet… They never said future elite specs of the Ranger (which are named differently) will have the pet as well as 100% fact, just that the Ranger will for 100% fact always have a pet..

I like my pet.
today, my raven killed a thief. If it hadnt been there, i would have lost….

wolfyrik.2017:

I’m not convinced about some of the Aspect ideas in this thread…

Maybe you’ve never been to the Ranger forum before, but we like to theory craft and be creative here

It’s all just ideas mate.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

wolfyrik.2017:

I’m not convinced about some of the Aspect ideas in this thread…

Maybe you’ve never been to the Ranger forum before, but we like to theory craft and be creative here

It’s all just ideas mate.

Daydreaming about what nice could we get is like the only nice thing about being a ranger. We are still going to get rubbish and stay being forgotten in all parts of the game.

Let’s have some bright times at forums at least.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

wolfyrik.2017:

I’m not convinced about some of the Aspect ideas in this thread…

Maybe you’ve never been to the Ranger forum before, but we like to theory craft and be creative here

It’s all just ideas mate.

Daydreaming about what nice could we get is like the only nice thing about being a ranger. We are still going to get rubbish and stay being forgotten in all parts of the game.

Let’s have some bright times at forums at least.

I mean, take a look at the other forums. Ranger forum is always full of ideas. Convincing me that people who main certain classes are attracted to that particular archetype for the same reasons, which is strange but also encouraging. It may also mean that we are all willing to put up with a lot of crap and adapt no matter what happens, which could explain a few things…

@Heim
Shall we Yolo up and boycott ? =D
… Well, I guess I wouldn’t even if I held the idea. I wouldn’t degrade myself to the level of children.

Hahaha! Couldn’t even if I wanted to

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

wolfyrik.2017:

I’m not convinced about some of the Aspect ideas in this thread…

Maybe you’ve never been to the Ranger forum before, but we like to theory craft and be creative here

It’s all just ideas mate.

Absolutely, many apologies!

Just old habits from three years of ranger dissapointment. When you realise that my three mains are (in order of creation) Ranger, Engi and Necro, you’ll prolly get where I am coming from. I came to GW2 looking to start a BM Ranger, I’m only just starting to feel like it’s remotely viable.

Theory-craft away and forget my cynical nay-saying

Well some additional information that I unfortunately don’t have any direct sources for is that in the super early phases of the game, rangers were only designed with having 3 pets in mind (still 1 active at a time).

Additionally, an old elite skill (I believe it was an elite) named Alpha Strike called out all of the pets to the combat field at once.

Those that know me know I don’t tend to use specifics when I speculate, but I imagine the druid mechanic to be very functionally similar to elementalists attunement swapping, but through different animal aspects that grant auras/buffs that apply to both yourself and allies.
As for how that changes the pet mechanic, it could be addressed it multiple ways. The most drastic ways would be, while not implementing a “perma-stow” feature, the pet also wouldn’t necessarily be “perma-active,” at least not in a traditional sense. ANet could even go to the extreme of treating the “auras” as though they are the pet mechanic (essentially eliminating the pet as a physical component of combat, or at the very least a damageable component).

All I can 100% say is that we factually know existing traits will have to work with the druid traitline. While Aspect swapping takes care of pet swapping traits, we still need to think about traits the give pets the ability to do something (bleed on crit, etc), traits the buff the pet, as well as attacks (might on crit, sharing boons you get to the pet, axe 3, shortbow 4, gs5, etc), and of course, traits that affect F2s (we all know these, don’t need another list lol).

There would be lots of “stretching” in incorporating all of these into just a basic aspect/aura/attunement idea. Do my traits now buff me? Am I sharing boons with myself and the people affected by my aspects? Am I giving myself my own attacks effects? How does the F2 traits work, would the activate on aspect swapping as well?

At the very least, I’d have to imagine that in order to deal with the F2 situation, aspects would be getting some sort of “overcharge” just like tempests. Heck, this could even call a modified pet mechanic of some sort to the field.

Regardless, I hope that the class receives innovative upgrades or even redesigns, but builds the system to be fluent and coherent so that everything “makes sense” together. What I wouldn’t want to see is a slightly altered mechanic that doesn’t “fix” any issues with the current mechanic and would serve better as a QoL update than an elite spec.

They paid a lot of attention to the CDI. The results of it were not immediate, but they were there.

Some of my early suggestions in that thread were:

Baseline increased arrow projectile speed.
Baseline signets applied to the ranger.
Reduced CD on ROA.
RF channel speed reduction.

And I know even other people’s suggestions were definitely considered and have been implemented already. It will be interesting to see if the pet hangs around as an aspect or if we still have the stupid AI companion.

jcbroe.4329:

Well some additional information that I unfortunately don’t have any direct sources for is that in the super early phases of the game, rangers were only designed with having 3 pets in mind (still 1 active at a time).

Additionally, an old elite skill (I believe it was an elite) named Alpha Strike called out all of the pets to the combat field at once.

List of Historical Skills
Alpha Strike

Wanna know a sad thing? Originally, it was planned for us to have [Dust Trap] and some of the past iterations of skills were pretty decent.

For fun, a list of old traits. Glancing over the list, some of these made their way into the current form of Ranger. Specifically, concepts of [Deadly Poisons] (before March 2012) was (re)introduced as [Poison Master] and [Call of the Hale and Wild] is part of [Windborne Notes]. Could we possibly see some of these concepts revived and/or revised for Druid traits? Who knows!

List of Historical Traits

Fun stuff to sift through, and the old Beta traits that affected pets make me wish some of those became baseline. Like Devourer auto attacks pierce, Spiders and Jellyfish cause vulnerability on all attacks, and possibly a rework of [Canine Training] as a new form of [Stability Training] so pet [F2] commands grant allies Stability.

Anyways, that was entertaining. Cheers.

DeceiverX.8361:

They paid a lot of attention to the CDI. The results of it were not immediate, but they were there.

Some of my early suggestions in that thread were:

Baseline increased arrow projectile speed.
Baseline signets applied to the ranger.
Reduced CD on ROA.
RF channel speed reduction.

And I know even other people’s suggestions were definitely considered and have been implemented already. It will be interesting to see if the pet hangs around as an aspect or if we still have the stupid AI companion.

I actually love my companion. I picked the class because of the pet. Not the bow.

I don’t think it’s okay for pet-designed class to get rid of pet.
I believe the pet should be fixed to be reliable, instead.

Tragic Positive.9356:

DeceiverX.8361:

They paid a lot of attention to the CDI. The results of it were not immediate, but they were there.

Some of my early suggestions in that thread were:

Baseline increased arrow projectile speed.
Baseline signets applied to the ranger.
Reduced CD on ROA.
RF channel speed reduction.

And I know even other people’s suggestions were definitely considered and have been implemented already. It will be interesting to see if the pet hangs around as an aspect or if we still have the stupid AI companion.

I actually love my companion. I picked the class because of the pet. Not the bow.

I don’t think it’s okay for pet-designed class to get rid of pet.
I believe the pet should be fixed to be reliable, instead.

I don’t want Ranger to lose the pet, but I have no problem with Druid getting some mechanic other than the pet either.

Tragic Positive.9356:

DeceiverX.8361:

They paid a lot of attention to the CDI. The results of it were not immediate, but they were there.

Some of my early suggestions in that thread were:

Baseline increased arrow projectile speed.
Baseline signets applied to the ranger.
Reduced CD on ROA.
RF channel speed reduction.

And I know even other people’s suggestions were definitely considered and have been implemented already. It will be interesting to see if the pet hangs around as an aspect or if we still have the stupid AI companion.

I actually love my companion. I picked the class because of the pet. Not the bow.

I don’t think it’s okay for pet-designed class to get rid of pet.
I believe the pet should be fixed to be reliable, instead.

What honestly “isn’t fair” about this statement is that historically, during design, ranger was originally 2 separate classes, one being primarily a ranged bow wielder while the other was a beastmaster. ANet at some point decided to cut and paste the 2 classes together because the design of the individual classes was lacking at that time, but thats what resulted in this modern day ranger.

I say it isn’t fair because the class was designed just as much to be a bow or ranged class as it was a pet class, in that regard.

I do echo the sentiment that removing the pet entirely from this stage would be problematic though, because it was designed to be both of the things I mentioned, meaning a the pet is a core theme of the class (its actually reflected in all of the art for the game where the ranger is always seen with a bow and a pet, with only rare instances of just the pet, but no instances I’ve seen wielding a different weapon).

It isn’t fair for anybody for any mechanic to be poorly designed or functional though. ANY situation where the pet stops feeling like an extension of the player and instead of a cohesive, well-integrated mechanic, it feels like a liability is an issue that should have honestly been fixed 3 years ago before the game ever went live.

In some regard, the pet mechanic is the most uniquely functioning mechanic in the game, but almost simultaneously in the worst possible ways. Every other class in the game has a mechanic that flows well in combat to use and functions well within what you would expect that class to be doing. Thieves speed across the field to steal something, necros accumulate living essence and unleash in upon their victims, warriors build up battle presence and lash out at there enemy, etc. And ranger players? They scream loudly at their screens for the pets to do things when they tell them to, stop pathing 5 seconds behind moving targets, and to notice the area of death they are sitting in and to come back before, oh wait, nope, dead pet again, it got 2 or 3 shot.

Point being, ANet did not design content and combat well for its pet class(es), and definitely did not design its pet class well to exist really in any game universe. Some games to pets really well, but GW2 is NOT that game.
How much longer do we wait though? It isn’t exactly fair for us to be waiting for a mechanic that should have been well-devised and functional at launch to be waiting 3 years later for work on a core component of the class design. It might not be thematically likeable or appropriate, be 3 years later with minimal progress on core issues might be time for a total overhaul and redesign, and if that includes an alteration to the mechanic, people might not like that initially, and they might never like it, but it might be a necessity in order to finally bring a class to where it needed to be 3 years ago.

Not even 2 classes. THREE.

Marksman, Warden, and Beastmaster. The Marksman was designed solely around the ability to use only ranged weapons, and had no pet or even ties to nature in its initial design concept.

The Marksman was scrapped due to the limitations of a ranged-only class, but the pet being merged into the class was only an afterthought done by scrapped ideas taken from the warden and beastmaster concepts because it simplified things and reduced redundancy, while giving the ranger its own unique class mechanic, as no other class has pets, and without such a gimmick it would be basically a worse warrior. A ranger being the pet class was only done to consolidate things and hasten development, not to design a ranged pet class as we know it. The reason you have historically seen so many longbow rangers over pet/melee ones is because the majority of people who look at the class intend to play a dedicated archer. This isn’t possible in GW2 and frankly, should be.

And that’s why I keep presenting the idea of removing the damage from the pet. Keep the pet, remove the damage. The pet could be entirely utility based and it could be glorious at it. We have so many pets, so many utility niches that could be filled.

Want to spot enemies behind a wall in WvW? Send a bird over the wall to mark enemies for you. Want to sniff out stealthed targets? Send a carnine. Want to catch a running target that is faster than you? Send a Moa.

We could even keep some pets that do damage, tho not much, which can be buffed by traiting the beastmaster line. So beastmaster would still be viable.

Pets could use a move command where you could mark a position and the pet would run to that position. You could mark an enemy or an ally and the pet will follow that player. You could mark you and your pet will follow you. Simple and effective.

That is the kind of pet I want to play with. For more ideas, check my signature.

@Wusel

You have no idea how many bloody times have I been thinking about the same pet design as yours.
Exactly the same. Oh good lord, how wonderful it would have been to have a meaningful pet like that. To pick a pet that is not a handbrake for us or other players paired with us. To feel the kitten difference between pets apart from knowing every single family apart from Wolves, Birds, Drakes and Cats suck.

But do you know the chances for that to happen? Yes, exactly. None.

Wuselknusel.4082:

And that’s why I keep presenting the idea of removing the damage from the pet. Keep the pet, remove the damage. The pet could be entirely utility based and it could be glorious at it. We have so many pets, so many utility niches that could be filled.

Want to spot enemies behind a wall in WvW? Send a bird over the wall to mark enemies for you. Want to sniff out stealthed targets? Send a carnine. Want to catch a running target that is faster than you? Send a Moa.

We could even keep some pets that do damage, tho not much, which can be buffed by traiting the beastmaster line. So beastmaster would still be viable.

Pets could use a move command where you could mark a position and the pet would run to that position. You could mark an enemy or an ally and the pet will follow that player. You could mark you and your pet will follow you. Simple and effective.

That is the kind of pet I want to play with. For more ideas, check my signature.

This would be a great way to use pets.

Or if they had to retain some DPS to have a purpose. Give burst and or ground targeted AOE abilities ONLY to pets.

Want GTAOE poison attack? Use a devourer.
Want GTAOE healing? send a moa to a location and have it scream…
Want GTAOE launch? Click on ground and your bear will charge in and pounce at the ground flinging people around it into the air.

A good zerg pet would be the drakes. They are slow, have slow attacks, but could be invulnerable unless someone is focussing them directly. They could also be able to bodyblock the enemy. I also thought about a pet that could stealth itself and other minions for a long peried of time, so that you can ambush someone (Let them run into your stealthed pet and attacks them form two fronts. May be funny if done with multiple Rangers).