Guild Wars 2

First off, I’d like to preface this thread by saying that I got bored and felt like brain-storming random ideas. I know that the odds of this being implemented is next to impossible.

So instead of having 2 permanent pets with relatively mediocre AI, why not replace them with 4 pet summon skills occupying the F1-F4 slots?

It would fit in the lore of the Ranger because instead of being a Beastmaster who tames and trains a single pet, the Ranger would be more of a Steward of nature commanding it to defend himself.

These skills would function similarly to Mesmer illusions in that they summon an AI companion to temporarily aid in combat with a special ability. They wouldn’t be constantly out, so as a result, wouldn’t detract from the Rangers power. They can also be killed to neutralize their threat. Similar to Guardian spirit weapons however, they would stay active for a set amount of time before going on a recharge, which the Pet attribute would reduce.

A few caveats:
The only one active animal at any given time, calling a different replaces the previous one.
Cooldown begins after the animal goes away.

Here are some proposed skills the pets would have.

Bird- Uses “Y” Slash every Xs
Drake – Uses PBAoE Breath attack every Xs
Moa – Uses PBAoE Screech buff/debuff every Xs
Spider – Uses Venom every Xs
Jaguar – Gives PBAoE stealth every Xs
Brown Bear – Similar to Phantasmal Defender in that it absorbs damage around it.

Don’t get bored again.

I don’t really agree with any of the proposed “fixes” to our class mechanic. I feel like pets should have never been a class mechanic in the first place. Pets always get relegated to using monster AI, which is always dumber than a sack of bricks. And to some extent, all classes and races get their very own “pets,” which really aren’t that much different from ranger pets in terms of functionality. The only difference being, ranger pets don’t have a time limit, and we can (partially) control what they do.

I would have liked to see rangers get a more unique class mechanic…perhaps spirits or traps, with pets functioning more like necromancer minions or summoned elementals. But the damage is done, and it’s likely that we’ll be stuck with our special needs pets for a long time to come.

Just image how the overall game community would take all monsters hitting on the run. First was the bot-based ranger hate, next would be ‘was this change worth it?’ hate.

Bran.7425:

Just image how the overall game community would take all monsters hitting on the run. First was the bot-based ranger hate, next would be ‘was this change worth it?’ hate.

That monsters might one day hit on the run is simply a suggestion in an attempt to create some kind of balance to the broken pet system. All solutions will come with problems, but yeah you are likely right in that it would be very hard to control specifics if you make the pet AI work too well.

That may be the case. I wonder what fixing the pet AI would break as we observed with the current patch traps which had not been part of the fixes somehow were bugged by something they did.