Guild Wars 2

The day I read that the ranger pet has been seriously revamped, is the day I cry tears of joy.

Chopps.5047:

Again, this is not a bug. This is intended. This is not bad programming. This is intended.

Since you’re not one of the programmers, it would be wise to not be running around stating your opinions as facts Chopps, something you seem to do far to often.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Chopps.5047:

Relax, why so mad? Cof 1 is just a DPS test. Of course it’s easy (unless you can’t frogger!) Ranger is useful everywhere—dungeons, fractals, jubilee. The point is that rangers main gripe, the lack of group buffs, has gone away now ghat vigorous spirits and spiritual knowledge were combined into a single adept trait, making spirits incredibly useful. Along with the spotter buff to 150 aoe precision, ranger is basically a good choice. Don’t take my word, just play spirits yourself.

The problem, of course, is that your strawman is showing. Spirits are not so useful in the areas OP is referring to. AoE buffs needed there are those that cannot be destroyed: spotter (which you mentioned), guardian shouts, warrior banners, etc. Spirits and moas, neither of which can avoid the types of AoE’s being discussed, are far less useful. Besides, in other areas rangers are still weak: lack of variety in fields, and lack of variety in finishers. Okay, so we have a melee-range blast finisher on a 35-second cooldown now. Hooray! Except, who would use that when single handed ranger weapons are so bad, and thieves get a ranged blast finish with no cooldown? Also, rangers get what, 2 fields total? One of them is on an otherwise poor offhand, and the other requires you to sacrifice a lot of self healing potential and mobility. Compare this to what the thief has easy access to: smoke, poison, and dark, along with multiple types of finishers including spammable blast finish.

The reason rangers have so few blast finishers, is because we have the best variety of combo fields in the game. We have:

• Two fire fields
• A frost field
• A water field
• Several poison fields
• An ethereal field (two if we’re counting underwater skills)

The only fields we don’t have access to are light, dark, and smoke fields (except for one underwater smoke field).

Quarktastic.1027:

The reason rangers have so few blast finishers, is because we have the best variety of combo fields in the game. We have:

• Two fire fields
• A frost field
• A water field
• Several poison fields
• An ethereal field (two if we’re counting underwater skills)

The only fields we don’t have access to are light, dark, and smoke fields (except for one underwater smoke field).

That is a little bit misleading. The fields we directly have access to are:
- 1 Fire field via Torch 5
- 1 Water field via Healing Spring
- 2 Poison fields via Carrion Devourer and Murellow F2’s.

Indirectly we have 1 Fire and 1 Ice via traps, but these must be triggered by mob/player in order to activate and thus have much more limited use than a direct access field above. For example, backline support cannot use these to project through unless a mob or player walks over and triggers it, which would be a less than ideal situation for said backline support players.

All other fields generated by our pets are done on attacks we have absolutely no control over, which is more of a detriment than a benefit because they are placed in areas where they may or may not be useful and at times when we may or may not be in a position to interact with them. Additionally, they could interfere with other combo fields placed in the area for specifically required interaction – attacks can only interact with one field at a time, and they are not accessible at all when the pet is dead.

If we were to be the kings of combo field generation that would be great, but they would have to come without asterisks on so many of them in order to justify the limited finisher lineup we have. Remember, we have one blast finisher and one only – and that is only as of a month ago after a long hard campaign for this addition. It’s not like we had that out of the gate, we had to practically scream bloody murder just to get that small tiny sliver of useful group interaction.

Under water functionality is a completely separate conversation and can’t be included in our list. In fact, the only fields we have access to underwater are Ethereal and Poison, both via pet F2’s. All other combo field abilities and weapons are barred from use underwater.

Khayoss.2019:

Quarktastic.1027:

The reason rangers have so few blast finishers, is because we have the best variety of combo fields in the game. We have:

• Two fire fields
• A frost field
• A water field
• Several poison fields
• An ethereal field (two if we’re counting underwater skills)

The only fields we don’t have access to are light, dark, and smoke fields (except for one underwater smoke field).

That is a little bit misleading. The fields we directly have access to are:
- 1 Fire field via Torch 5
- 1 Water field via Healing Spring
- 2 Poison fields via Carrion Devourer and Murellow F2’s.

Indirectly we have 1 Fire and 1 Ice via traps, but these must be triggered by mob/player in order to activate and thus have much more limited use than a direct access field above. For example, backline support cannot use these to project through unless a mob or player walks over and triggers it, which would be a less than ideal situation for said backline support players.

All other fields generated by our pets are done on attacks we have absolutely no control over, which is more of a detriment than a benefit because they are placed in areas where they may or may not be useful and at times when we may or may not be in a position to interact with them. Additionally, they could interfere with other combo fields placed in the area for specifically required interaction – attacks can only interact with one field at a time, and they are not accessible at all when the pet is dead.

If we were to be the kings of combo field generation that would be great, but they would have to come without asterisks on so many of them in order to justify the limited finisher lineup we have. Remember, we have one blast finisher and one only – and that is only as of a month ago after a long hard campaign for this addition. It’s not like we had that out of the gate, we had to practically scream bloody murder just to get that small tiny sliver of useful group interaction.

Under water functionality is a completely separate conversation and can’t be included in our list. In fact, the only fields we have access to underwater are Ethereal and Poison, both via pet F2’s. All other combo field abilities and weapons are barred from use underwater.

Jellyfish have a water field and a smoke field.

Quarktastic.1027:

Jellyfish have a water field and a smoke field.

Maybe I’m missing something but I don’t see a water field on either of my jellyfish pets? In any event the smoke field is again on an attack that we do not control. Unreliable and unpredictable combo field generation isn’t really much of a benefit…

Khayoss.2019:

Quarktastic.1027:

Jellyfish have a water field and a smoke field.

Maybe I’m missing something but I don’t see a water field on either of my jellyfish pets? In any event the smoke field is again on an attack that we do not control. Unreliable and unpredictable combo field generation isn’t really much of a benefit…

The water field is on the jellyfish’s healing mist thingy.

And just because we don’t have control over it doesn’t mean it’s unreliable nor does it mean it shouldn’t be counted. Also, i’m pretty sure the Salamander Drakes F2 counts as a Fire Field (underwater).

Melana.8345:

The pet does not dodge. It is not aware of aoe circles, and just stands blindly in them. It has no pathing ability to recognise a mine, so explodes every kitten one. It can’t jump on boxes to avoid electricity walls. It’s too kitten slow to respond to a Ranger’s commands for the Ranger to compensate for this most of the time, it doesn’t heel properly (preferring to run around the ranger at about 2m range away) so the Ranger can’t path it through “a minefield” themselves, and even when called back it’ll take ages to actually start moving and then path back in a straight line through every single bit of aoe along the way (there’s no ability for the Ranger to say “scatter/move” instead of “come to me”). Even when calling on it to actually use a skill, the 2-5 second activation delay makes that skill pretty useless (as most of the time it’ll miss). And in some of these fights, there was actually nothing the ranger could do to keep a pet alive and functioning – the limitations of the AI couldn’t be worked around at all (e.g. the electric walls fight).

In “challenging & interesting PvE combat” such as we’ve seen over the last few months, the Ranger’s primary mechanic is to have their damage nerfed by 20% or more for the duration of the fight.

Whether that nerf is due to pet death, to calling them out of combat to prevent death, or simply just due to them not being able to hit a moving target doesn’t really matter – the end result is that the Ranger was balanced around an NPC AI that is incapable of reacting to the challenges that players can, and the mechanic itself is in direct conflict with the desire to be able to provide interesting & challenging content.

This so much.

Talking only about pve here too.

I was trying the last gauntlet fight against the shadow lady and my build is like 0/10/30/0/30 most of the time when im outside so i decided to give her a shot with the build im used to play.

Wrong! There is no way in hell i can keep a pet alive in this fight. Either its a moving clone or the ground AoE, it take like 5 seconds and my ranger scream “Pet’s down!” Even if i put it on passive, sometime im in the middle of the aoe and i dodge roll in it so i dont get killed by my pet is instantly dead.

Then come the part where she get to attack… she cleave, she 360* aoe twirl, the aoe keep coming etc.

Its not the only boss, like the sniper. The cat get sniped, walk in every mines etc.

I love the look of the ranger class and i usually like pet classes, i like the extra layer of management but here most of the time in Fotm, some bosses and huge event, its impossible to keep the pet alive, even if you change for ranged pet like devourer they still get demolished. Even specced in Beast master to get pet back faster i still do most of the challenging fight without it, losing a huge chunk of dps. All the keys are bound to my razer mouse,i pay attention to my pet, i dont mind blowing my heal to save it but you cant save from an instant one shot.

I dont remember how many time i called him back seeing the red circle under is feet and i see my pet move left to right before coming back, making sure he taste this DELICIOUS AOE DAMAGE!!! and die, limping back to me saying “lol did you see me in that aoe?”.

You know why the developper didnt make a stow permanent? Because they say they dont want the ranger to stow their mechanic and they shouldnt be petless. kitten right, they know that if we had the option, a ton of ranger would run without a pet because the AI is extra crap in PVE. If i had a trait in my trees that would make like grimoire of sacrifice in WoW where you can destroy your pet for a damage buff, i would do so in a heartbeat. I do love the pets, i love having versatilty and choosing which buff or which pet for the occasion and i would love to run with them.

I just finished leveling a rogue, i guess ill give it a whirl.

Everybody proposed a decent fix already to help with the awful AI and what every other game that have a class with pets. An aoe damage reduction of 75% to 90% (depending on the game) FOR PVE ONLY!!!

So either make them dodge roll when an aoe is coming, give them damage reduction from aoe or move even more damage out of the pet and on us so when they die, we dont feel like we lost a huge chunk of dps.

Quarktastic.1027:

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Chopps.5047:

Relax, why so mad? Cof 1 is just a DPS test. Of course it’s easy (unless you can’t frogger!) Ranger is useful everywhere—dungeons, fractals, jubilee. The point is that rangers main gripe, the lack of group buffs, has gone away now ghat vigorous spirits and spiritual knowledge were combined into a single adept trait, making spirits incredibly useful. Along with the spotter buff to 150 aoe precision, ranger is basically a good choice. Don’t take my word, just play spirits yourself.

The problem, of course, is that your strawman is showing. Spirits are not so useful in the areas OP is referring to. AoE buffs needed there are those that cannot be destroyed: spotter (which you mentioned), guardian shouts, warrior banners, etc. Spirits and moas, neither of which can avoid the types of AoE’s being discussed, are far less useful. Besides, in other areas rangers are still weak: lack of variety in fields, and lack of variety in finishers. Okay, so we have a melee-range blast finisher on a 35-second cooldown now. Hooray! Except, who would use that when single handed ranger weapons are so bad, and thieves get a ranged blast finish with no cooldown? Also, rangers get what, 2 fields total? One of them is on an otherwise poor offhand, and the other requires you to sacrifice a lot of self healing potential and mobility. Compare this to what the thief has easy access to: smoke, poison, and dark, along with multiple types of finishers including spammable blast finish.

The reason rangers have so few blast finishers, is because we have the best variety of combo fields in the game. We have:

• Two fire fields
• A frost field
• A water field
• Several poison fields
• An ethereal field (two if we’re counting underwater skills)

The only fields we don’t have access to are light, dark, and smoke fields (except for one underwater smoke field).

I already mentioned bonfire and healing spring, and their disadvantages compared to fields that other professions have access too. Someone else mentioned the problems with those granted by traps and pet skills which you can’t control. I think I’ll just follow up by pointing out that choking gas gives a poison field of 4s duration on no cooldown, while the pet F2 poison fields give a mere 2s on at least 30 seconds of cooldown. I have no idea where you’re getting the idea that we have 2 ethereal fields. I know of 1, and it’s underwater only.

Now compare this to the readily spammable smoke and poison fields that the thief has, or the light fields that the guardian has…all if which are on weapon skills and have little or no cooldown, and all of which are accompanied by at least as much variety in finishers.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Chopps.5047:

Again, this is not a bug. This is intended. This is not bad programming. This is intended.

Since you’re not one of the programmers, it would be wise to not be running around stating your opinions as facts Chopps, something you seem to do far to often.

Do I? My bad, sorry, I didn’t mean to make it sound that way. Anything I say is just my own opinion.

Chopps, I feel as though you are missing the point of this thread. Sure rangers are far from a useless class and with a bit of skill on the part of the player can complete any content any other class can. However this does not change the issues with the pet detailed by the OP.

The living story releases are a great example of this.
- In the molten facility you had to go out of your way, sacrificing utilities and using the talkiest pets, just to get them to survive as they couldn’t jump over or roll through the shockwaves.
- Pets will blindly walk into and activate any environmental items, such as the underwater mines in the aetherblade dungeon, the mines in the southsun cove dungeon, and the mines in a Queen’s Gauntlet fight.
- In the aetherblade dungeon pets were unable to avoid the laser walls.
- The pet is unable to survive the constant AoE Liadri puts out.

The ranger can still manage to beat this content, but the fact is they lose a heavy portion of their damage if their pet dies, and even if they go through great lengths to keep their pet alive such as using utilities, a tanky pet, and constantly positioning it via recall and guard, they are perhaps put at an even greater disadvantage as doing these things have little positive return; you’re just keeping your pet alive for the sake of keeping it alive, eating up your characters actions, traits, and utilities, all while it is providing little aid to you or your team.

Pets just don’t fit in with the mechanics we have seen in these living story releases, and that needs to change. At the very least pets need to be resistant or immune to mechanics which they cannot reasonably avoid.

Going deeper into this subject, this is something which affects far more than just the ranger and his pet. Any companions which is designed to be a lasting entity, from minions, to elementals, to spirits, suffer from the exact same problem.

So much of the game is designed around constant repositioning and dodges, that these companions simply cannot survive effectively in many situations, especially in dungeons.

Other classes may be able to opt out of using these companions, an option the ranger does not have, but that’s just avoiding the problem. What these companions need is something to make up for their inability to avoid mechanics which are designed to be avoided with things they have no access too, such as jumps, dodges, and smart positioning.

Seriously, don’t argue with Chopps – he’s never died, was born with GW2 code in his head, and is the absolute god of all rangers – everyone else is just bad and wants to be him.

There are no problems with the class, every bug is behaving as intended, and none of us are as good as him, which is why sometimes, when you NEED to dodge, you can’t (Chopps wouldn’t have needed to, after all – you’re just bad), and of course, pets were never supposed to be able to hit anything, bows are simply cosmetic, and never to be used. Were any of the above different, Chopps would let us know.

stale.9785:

Seriously, don’t argue with Chopps – he’s never died, was born with GW2 code in his head, and is the absolute god of all rangers – everyone else is just bad and wants to be him.

There are no problems with the class, every bug is behaving as intended, and none of us are as good as him, which is why sometimes, when you NEED to dodge, you can’t (Chopps wouldn’t have needed to, after all – you’re just bad), and of course, pets were never supposed to be able to hit anything, bows are simply cosmetic, and never to be used. Were any of the above different, Chopps would let us know.

Lol no I love Bri and respect Bri’s thoughts and opinions. There are legitimate issues with ranger profession. But sometimes I see what I consider “not legit complaint” and vigorously argue against it. Obviously—and regrettably—it’s made me come off as a know it all. And I’m not. I’m not even that great of a player—I’ve tried and failed to solo Lupicus and most of my best builds are something Durzlla or jcbroe or xsorsus talked about. I just have a lot of hours and a lot of passion.

4147 deaths and counting…

Lol, I tossed that up there, Chopps, because in every single complaint thread I’ve read in the Ranger forum, without fail, you pop up pointing out that whatever the issue is “isn’t a problem, it’s supposed to be that way” or it’s a L2P issue. Almost like Microsoft and “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.” I honestly can’t recall any single instant where you’ve admitted there was a problem (and I’m far too lazy to actually check your post history, because clicking is almost, like, effort, eh?)

It’s nothing personal, and obviously (I hope) firmly tongue in cheek.

Later, eh?

Stale

Dude I’m a huge whiner, just ask Durz or Prysin or Bri. My biggest thing right now is that there is a 1 min penalty on double pet death in pve. I think that sorely needs split and is a good solution. Anet and many others disagree. So there’s one thing, and, yes, it is implicitly admitted there that occasionally pets are less than adequate.

I guess I get annoyed when I see people complain about sword because I think it’s nearly perfect, despite all the so called issues. That’s my opinion, I’m allowed to have that, right? I get annoyed when people ask for things that I don’t see as beneficial to the profession. And I get annoyed when I see a lack of discussion on things that are going well or improving on ranger (remoresless/valkryie build for example is effective yet extremely unpopular). So that’s why I come from where I do, I hope that makes sense.

Chopps.5047:

Dude I’m a huge whiner, just ask Durz or Prysin or Bri. My biggest thing right now is that there is a 1 min penalty on double pet death in pve. I think that sorely needs split and is a good solution. Anet and many others disagree. So there’s one thing, and, yes, it is implicitly admitted there that occasionally pets are less than adequate.

I guess I get annoyed when I see people complain about sword because I think it’s nearly perfect, despite all the so called issues. That’s my opinion, I’m allowed to have that, right? I get annoyed when people ask for things that I don’t see as beneficial to the profession. And I get annoyed when I see a lack of discussion on things that are going well or improving on ranger (remoresless/valkryie build for example is effective yet extremely unpopular). So that’s why I come from where I do, I hope that makes sense.

No it needs to be fixed everywhere, me and my friends in PvP (being a ranger/former ranger myself) butcher the pet first thing, poor kittens don’t get to live very long against me and my friends and it shuts the ranger down in so many scenarios we can literally ignore them once we’ve firmly kicked their pooch into a grave.

Coming up on the game’s first anniversary and this issue has basically gone nowhere. If anything I feel like it has gotten worse as they’ve tried to make harder and more interesting enemy encounters.

I feel like the only answer is a drastic redesign of the pet mechanics. The content is simply not designed to support them.

Well, it’s an embarrassing argument, but, being Chopps, I have to throw it out there: it takes you a little time to kill the pet, right? Leaving you open to attack for a small window of time? lol, it’s all I got man

Wallach.7291:

Coming up on the game’s first anniversary and this issue has basically gone nowhere. If anything I feel like it has gotten worse as they’ve tried to make harder and more interesting enemy encounters.

I feel like the only answer is a drastic redesign of the pet mechanics. The content is simply not designed to support them.

I think simply making pets have an AoE reduction, dropping their aggro levels in areas needed (EX gauntlet your pet won’t pull Agro unles you stealth first thing), and make pet death CD 20s regardless of if they were alive or dead (or give us the option to kittening Rez them back!!) and it’d be fine.

Makes perfect sense, and I even get the opinion thing (I try to always remember that someone who disagrees with me isn’t stupid/evil/blind, just that they’re looking at it differently than I am).

I come at every suggestion in terms of nudging the ranger towards my personal “ideal”, and accept that everyone else does too.

Also, yeah, blarg. As long as pets are required, pet death penalty should be shorter in all formats.

@Durzilla: That example shows exactly why I say the ranger is far too tied to the pet.

Chopps.5047:

Well, it’s an embarrassing argument, but, being Chopps, I have to throw it out there: it takes you a little time to kill the pet, right? Leaving you open to attack for a small window of time? lol, it’s all I got man

What normally happens is a warrior will either Kill Shot or Eviscerate it which kills it instantly, thief will backstab it, again killing it instantly, we AoE condi the ranger and the pet, causing it to die almost instantly once EB kicks in, or I, the more supporty build, burst it down killing it pretty quickly and denying the ranger a huge amount of damage, survival, and CC.

Granted if they’re using something like a bear or a pig (or another nearly useless pet) we ignore it entirerly, cats, birds, and canines though? That thing will be dead in seconds.

Durzlla.6295:

Wallach.7291:

Coming up on the game’s first anniversary and this issue has basically gone nowhere. If anything I feel like it has gotten worse as they’ve tried to make harder and more interesting enemy encounters.

I feel like the only answer is a drastic redesign of the pet mechanics. The content is simply not designed to support them.

I think simply making pets have an AoE reduction, dropping their aggro levels in areas needed (EX gauntlet your pet won’t pull Agro unles you stealth first thing), and make pet death CD 20s regardless of if they were alive or dead (or give us the option to kittening Rez them back!!) and it’d be fine.

My problem with trying to massage the current implementation until it’s passable is simple – there are too many factors involved with their current design to get these numbers to the right place in a way where it is balanced across all the current content. More importantly, it doesn’t safeguard the pet mechanic going forward as they continue to add elements to challenge players in new ways that don’t currently exist. Besides, the basic functionality of the things isn’t even working correctly a year later; even when they’re alive they’re not filling their intended role even close to how they should be.

Chopps.5047:

Relax, why so mad? Cof 1 is just a DPS test. Of course it’s easy (unless you can’t frogger!) Ranger is useful everywhere—dungeons, fractals, jubilee. The point is that rangers main gripe, the lack of group buffs, has gone away now ghat vigorous spirits and spiritual knowledge were combined into a single adept trait, making spirits incredibly useful. Along with the spotter buff to 150 aoe precision, ranger is basically a good choice. Don’t take my word, just play spirits yourself.

It bothers me that you still troll the forums all day everyday, trying to say that there isn’t anything wrong with the Ranger class. I know you are entitled to your opinion…but come on man…even the people who were ADAMANT that the world was flat EVENTUALLY admitted they were full of it.

Good job OP! Said it very well.

Read a few posts up, my man, I answered that very question. Be cool

Edit: I only troll the wvw matchup thread (just rickrolled them yesterday)

Edit: Yes, I clearly have too much free time. That is changing though! I haven’t been putting in near the same hours I used to.

Cole Winters.2764:

Chopps.5047:

Relax, why so mad? Cof 1 is just a DPS test. Of course it’s easy (unless you can’t frogger!) Ranger is useful everywhere—dungeons, fractals, jubilee. The point is that rangers main gripe, the lack of group buffs, has gone away now ghat vigorous spirits and spiritual knowledge were combined into a single adept trait, making spirits incredibly useful. Along with the spotter buff to 150 aoe precision, ranger is basically a good choice. Don’t take my word, just play spirits yourself.

It bothers me that you still troll the forums all day everyday, trying to say that there isn’t anything wrong with the Ranger class. I know you are entitled to your opinion…but come on man…even the people who were ADAMANT that the world was flat EVENTUALLY admitted they were full of it.

Good job OP! Said it very well.

No they didn’t. :/

http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms/

What is it that our pets bring to the table as far as a class mechanic goes?

It brings damage but the damage of a ranger is lower so that the damage our pets do is required to be on par with the other classes.

It brings a skill we can use (F2). Along with some that it uses on its own

We can tell the pet to attack one mob while we attack the other.

We can get the pet to tank while we provide support.

Honestly I would be happy with the following.

The attacks the pets have (the non F2 ability that are controlled by the AI) are removed and the pet simply does an auto attack.

The pet can not gain aggro. Aggro always goes to the ranger.

The pet can not be harmed in any way. Swapping is on a fixed 30 sec CD with a trait that can reduce it to 20 sec.

What would these changes do?

Pets would simply become a visual representation of their F2.

The damage they provide is simply needed for the class to be on par with other classes.

They allow the ranger to divide the damage between two seperate enemies, while the ranger has the aggro of said enemies.

Since the pet’s damage is needed to be on par, that one can be ignored as it’s per normal.

That simply leaves hitting an extra mob at the same time, and the F2.

A class mechanic that is still on par with other class mechanics and you don’t have to be worried about being kitten since no harm can come to the pet.

Of course skills and traits that work with the survivability (or lack thereof) of the pet would have to be replaced.

Zen.2450:

Cole Winters.2764:

Chopps.5047:

Relax, why so mad? Cof 1 is just a DPS test. Of course it’s easy (unless you can’t frogger!) Ranger is useful everywhere—dungeons, fractals, jubilee. The point is that rangers main gripe, the lack of group buffs, has gone away now ghat vigorous spirits and spiritual knowledge were combined into a single adept trait, making spirits incredibly useful. Along with the spotter buff to 150 aoe precision, ranger is basically a good choice. Don’t take my word, just play spirits yourself.

It bothers me that you still troll the forums all day everyday, trying to say that there isn’t anything wrong with the Ranger class. I know you are entitled to your opinion…but come on man…even the people who were ADAMANT that the world was flat EVENTUALLY admitted they were full of it.

Good job OP! Said it very well.

No they didn’t. :/

http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms/

Your source is the flat earth society? I don’t think they’re very reputable to put it mildly. They’re also completely irrelevant.

Anyways, my source is the guild DnT (Death and Taxes), the guild that has many PvE records in gw2. I think you need to check yourself because the COF world record (standing for a month) is shown on the second video.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/84268-the-perfect-dps-ranger-guide-for-real/

It looks like you’re at least a month or two behind the meta. But that’s ok, the average PUG is probably about 6 months behind the meta so don’t feel bad.

Now, if you want to change the meta, you have to do things faster than shown in those videos—without ranger’s huge team wide buffs or massive damage. Good luck!

My biggest problem is that it seems to be a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing at Anet.

It’s like the team is not even looking at the class mechanic before designing content that’s plain broken. Aetherblade mid boss is like that. I thought the proper way to get through that lazer wall was to jump ontop of the crate, pet swap it ontop, jump off and then swap him down, but no, that fight you were not meant to have a pet that’s alive. And now Liadri is the same.

You can’t be telling your players your pet is an extension of your toon and you’re required to use it and at the same time release content that’s not even really doable without ignoring the pet entirely. That’s just bad design.

Either give people option like perma stow, and/or fix the pet, or don’t release broken content like that.

Yeah, some of their mechanics just don’t take the ranger pet into account—probably because it’s so much extra work. ANET is a small company so I wager there isn’t a whole lot of left hand/right hand not knowing stuff. Maybe if ANET grows too fast…

Is there a reason pets can’t be immune or have massive reduction to damage from red circles? I love my ranger so much until I take her in a dungeon or try living story content.

smackphat.2917:

Is there a reason pets can’t be immune or have massive reduction to damage from red circles? I love my ranger so much until I take her in a dungeon or try living story content.

Because it’d completely break the game and rangers would become #1 solo dungeon prof.

EX: bear pet + 30 BM can take on 2 karka by himself, and kill them both BG himself without any worry of death (assuming you actually are healing your pet and not doing anything else).

If that same bear were immune to AoEs most bosses could be made trivial by a solo ranger or all ranger group.

If people want to wait around while pets kill bosses more power to them.

and this is why i roll a spirit ranger for pvp [ez pz], a perma stealth thief for wvw[even more ez pz], and a guardian for pve [also ez pz]. No matter how much i love my ranger and its t3 cultural armor and its legendary torch rodgort, theres no way i can take him everywhere i want.

Chopps.5047:

Yeah, some of their mechanics just don’t take the ranger pet into account—probably because it’s so much extra work. ANET is a small company

That’s the most stupid excuse you could ever come with. They ruined this class with a stupid and poorly implemented pet mechanic and after 1 year nothing has been done about that. I don’t give a kitten if their company is small.

Honestly, at this point, I’d just be happy with a perma-stow option and that damage given back to the Ranger so they don’t have to worry about designing any content around the pet.

thefantasticg.3984:

Honestly, at this point, I’d just be happy with a perma-stow option and that damage given back to the Ranger so they don’t have to worry about designing any content around the pet.

This would be the easiest solution and I would even applaud it if it was only a temporary one untill they find a way around it.
Adding auto- dodges, aoe resist etc. will require a lot more work on Anets part.

Might as well tack this on to the hopes and dreams of having a useful WvW build. Aka. Never going to happen.

But nice post though.

Watching the Livesteam right now and this thread has never looked so relevant…

I wonder how many conversations at Anet went like this, " Oh! I have a great idea for a dungeon, but … wait, a rangers pet will really screw it up… Crap, never mind."

I’m just throwing this here because I wanted one last bump to this thread even though I know it’ll never do any good.
Take care.

Castaliea.3156:

I had a nice reply all typed up but go figure the forums glitch and I lose it the one god kitten time I don’t select all and copy before clicking post…

Anyways, I’ve been playing GW games since Pre but it’s clear there is nothing left of the old ANet who dreamed of GW2. I’ve had enough of this new company’s lies and incompetence.

I’m uninstalling.
They had how many weeks to work on skill changes and they did what with that? Have fun with your useless profession mechanic, kitten -poor designed traits and utility skills, lazily band-aided weapons, and last but not least your completely ignored profession sub forums and suggestions.

In the SOTG today they talked very briefly about improving pet AI. Hopefully some of the suggestions from here caught their eye and its not just F2 responsiveness being sorted (not that that isn’t an issue).

smackphat.2917:

In the SOTG today they talked very briefly about improving pet AI. Hopefully some of the suggestions from here caught their eye and its not just F2 responsiveness being sorted (not that that isn’t an issue).

Adding onto this…

They want to make the F2 skill (and active skills for minions, spirits, spirit weapons ETC) very very responsive, and then for pets they want to make their AI smarter on when to use things like the KD and that. IF that fails then they said they would be looking into making it so the ranger can manually activate all their pets abilities.

Durzlla.6295:

Adding onto this…

They want to make the F2 skill (and active skills for minions, spirits, spirit weapons ETC) very very responsive, and then for pets they want to make their AI smarter on when to use things like the KD and that. IF that fails then they said they would be looking into making it so the ranger can manually activate all their pets abilities.

They actually said that on Sotg? Maybe the extended beta will be over soon then
Is there a video up yet from the Sotg?

Boomstin.3460:

Durzlla.6295:

Adding onto this…

They want to make the F2 skill (and active skills for minions, spirits, spirit weapons ETC) very very responsive, and then for pets they want to make their AI smarter on when to use things like the KD and that. IF that fails then they said they would be looking into making it so the ranger can manually activate all their pets abilities.

They actually said that on Sotg? Maybe the extended beta will be over soon then
Is there a video up yet from the Sotg?

Yup, there’s a few links to it in the ele and sPvP channel (can’t link it now or I would)

For a lot of the content that is released, it doesn’t seem like pets are even considered. Consider Liandry where pets would just get one shotted nearly instantly unless one manages to overcome their limited controls. But even beyond that, in many dungeon fights and high level content, pets die instantly leaving ranger has half a class.

Whenever I come back to Guild Wars 2, I wish that class improvements and fixes would take precedent over new content.

Yeah with the “invasion” stuff my (so called) “pet” was like a headless chicken, it went something like this, my pet “Right here I go into battle, oops I’m dead wtf”.

Great stuff.