Guild Wars 2

So first off, I have no real hope of this, or any meaningful positive change, being implemented in the forseeable future. This is just my way to vent/brainstorm ideas.

With that out of the way let the rant begin.
So ANet has made it clear that Rangers are the designated pet class and that pets are here to stay. I get that an accept it however, as we all know and ANet even admitted themselves, pet AI is bad. Really bad. So my idea is to turn pets into a hybrid between engineer tool-belt skills and mesmer summoned phantasms.

The F1-F4 pet commands could be replaced with selectable pets through the pet window like currently and similarly to tool-belt skills. However, in practice, they would behave more closely to phantasms.

When activated, they would summon the pet. If melee, it would appear within striking range of your target and if ranged at your side. Summoning the pet will activate their primary skill, most likely their F2 ability. After performing their ability, they will stick around for ~20s or until killed. During that time they would perform their basic Skill #1 auto attack. To avoid a petting zoo situation, Summoning a new pet would cancel the current one.

Since pets are basically going to be turned into utilities with a DoT tossed on the side, I think that damage can be shifted back toward the Ranger. If ANet insists, they can make is an 80/20% ratio to promote frequent use of the pet.

So what does the community feel about this?

What community?

There only people here are a few who can play ranger, many that has a hum about what works and even more that are noobs and whine endlessly.

There are ways to make the current pet mechanic AI work better. Those ideas were never received well because people always flame.

Wouldn’t mind having it this way.

solrik.6028:

What community?

There only people here are a few who can play ranger, many that has a hum about what works and even more that are noobs and whine endlessly.

There are ways to make the current pet mechanic AI work better. Those ideas were never received well because people always flame.

I think you’re taking my post a little to seriously. Just having some fun and talking to fellow rangers, good or bad. Also where do you think you and I fit on your continuum?

I’ve proposed a similar sort of idea. Check it out and see what you think. Perhaps the ideals from both could be integrated?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Pets-should-their-role-be-changed/first#post3675958

I checked out your thread. Correct my if I’m wrong, but you idea is to turn pets into buff/control bots right? Why that does help out power builds, I don’t see it doing much beyond that.

If they retain the current AI, it’d be a crapshoot when their abilities go off. Simple abilities like casting heal or prot can easily be queued to activate when your/its health drops below a certain point.

However, what if you want to use it for a buddy? If their abilities can be cast by the Ranger, then why not just skip the middle man and make it like tool-bar utilities? And then, with ANet’s reluctance on giving Ranger more pet control, it’s unlikely to happen anyway.

Not to toot my own horn, and no one’s popped my balloon just yet, but I see my idea working with the current flawed system to be more easily implemented then the total overall you’re suggesting. Pets could be turned into a summoned creature. They can be generated as an allied spawn in front of your target with their first queued ability being their F2. And since they stick around, most of the current pet traits are left still working. As pets currently are, hitting F4 doesn’t actually swap your pet so much that it generates a new one. The only real difference is that a patch added in retention of the skill cooldowns.

Well, you’d get closer to a 1:1 return on your power-based character building choices, which is currently the only way to build your Ranger that suffering from a fractured baseline because we have to divide it with the pet.
So that would help.

It’s like this.
I get the source of your frustration, but the fact you feel that way is epidemic of larger problems and any kind of direct-F-key suggestion would be Anet doing an awful patchjob.

I get that Pets feel bad as a delivery system to affect the playingfield because it seems like it has no real benefits over a simple ground-targeted AOE. But that’s not how pet mechanics are supposed to work. What the game needs to be doing is refining pets as ways to affect the playingfeild, to make sure they’re offering some unique advantages that can’t be otherwise achieved with projectiles or AOEs.

Their current offering of allowing tandem play is just not enough. (that is to say, allowing you to do one thing, and your pet to do another at the same time). Because they aren’t capable of doing anything impactful enough that doing it while we do something else is all that advantageous. (see: Sloth and Rescue for a good example of where the pet’s lack of impact makes the tandem feature totally pointless)

ChillyChinaman.6057:

solrik.6028:

What community?

There only people here are a few who can play ranger, many that has a hum about what works and even more that are noobs and whine endlessly.

There are ways to make the current pet mechanic AI work better. Those ideas were never received well because people always flame.

I think you’re taking my post a little to seriously. Just having some fun and talking to fellow rangers, good or bad. Also where do you think you and I fit on your continuum?

I had a similar idea once which involved ‘stances’. Only one stance was ever activated, each stance would have either an on-activate effect or an on-expire effect. Also, each of these stances had a persistent passive effect. A stance would expire when a condition is met. When an effect is made “active” (i.e. it does it’s active effect, and not it’s passive effect) a pet is summoned.

There are for certain better rangers than me. When I fight about rangers I know what tricks my enemy might use and I also pay attention to what buffs (s)he has (food, signets, opening strike)

If I notice that (s)he has Empathic Bond then I try to cover my conditions with Cripple/Poison/Burning and then go in with the other ones.

I would put myself below the “Can play ranger” because there are better rangers than me, but still above the “Hum about what works” because I know every single skill, trait, weapon skill and tactics that makes the pet a punching bag and soaks up CC for me without traits.

Without reworking the system too much, I would like to see a “combo” window that allows us to cutsomise how pets will behave.

One example would be:
If enemy crippled, then use knockdown skill (for canines that is)
If first attack, then use blast finisher (drakes)
If enemy health at 50% use X
and so on.

This would enable combos like 8s immobilise from spiders
If enemy crippled, use immob skill
If enemy immobilised, activate F2
If F2 activated, attack with basic skill.