Guild Wars 2

In the game update notes ArenaNet recently commented on their design philosophy regarding rangers and their pets. “The ranger class combines its own innate abilities with the skills of their pets. We’ve balanced the class around the idea that you always have a pet with you to aid in any fight.”

However, for this to work, rangers need a reliable pet that is able to attack and hit the target for the majority of the fight. The recent fix to the melee pets that allows them to hit moving targets is a good start, but pets are still very much unreliable for a few reasons.

For starters, few pets are able to survive for very long in PvE. Most pets are simply too squishy to be viable melee attackers in dungeons, getting killed in just a few hits. Bears and ranged pets do have better survivability, but still have some trouble surviving, especially if hit by AoE or strong single target attacks which many champions and above frequently use.

I believe this problem is mainly caused by the action based combat. You cannot sit there and expect to live in this game; you need to be constantly moving and using skills at the right time, and this also applies to companions. The issue is, pets have no reliable method of dodging or mitigating attacks at the right moment; they just sit there and and the only thing you can do is waste a utility to keep them alive for a few more seconds, or make them run back to you.

Pets also have issues with ranged combat putting rangers at a disadvantage. In WvW they are virtually useless in castle warfare other than their F2 skill. Ranged pets cannot effectively hit targets due to their short range and unwillingness to get into the correct positions to hit the opponent, while melee pets cannot do anything.

In some dungeons, such as the forward/up path of twilight arbor, I am unable to even use ranged pets due to the aggro they cause. I find myself putting my pet on avoid combat during the entire fight because they are unreliable. If only there was a pet with 1,200 range.

Some skills being designed to apply effects to the pet also disadvantage the ranger class. Take the shortbow #4 skill, crippling shot, and the sword auto-attack for example. Crippling shot makes your pets next 4 attacks apply bleeding, but if your pet is down it cannot do this, and the bleeding applied by your pet with this skill is WEAKER THAN YOUR OWN. The sword auto-attack applies might to your pet, but because your pet is unreliable it is not as effective as applying it to yourself, it puts you at a disadvantage to other classes which would apply might to themselves.

And finally, F2 skills are often too bulky to be effective. After pressing the F2 key it may take your pet a few seconds to start up the ability, then depending on its casting time, it can take a few seconds for your pet to launch its attack. The amount of time required makes many pet F2 abilities unreliable.

I’m sure there are other reliability issues out there, but these things are serious issues seeing how the ranger is balanced around always having a pet to back him up. The pets need to be reliable for this class philosophy to work, and this is currently far from the case.

JP made huge progress fixing pet melee for this patch. with increase to pet speed via Sic Em, trait, or SoH, my cats are landing almost every swipe, and they cant be juked as easily.

once aoe damage is nerfed across the board (possible upcoming change), pets will be in a decent shape. however, pets still need improvements to pathfinding…it’s still terribad. they cant seem to turn in an arc, just on sharp angles.

Well said. Hopefully they’re still tightening pets up, however that works.

I would love to see pets with the ability to dodge… not sure how it would work well, unless they designed some decent AI for them.

Jake Dressler.8204:

I would love to see pets with the ability to dodge… not sure how it would work well, unless they designed some decent AI for them.

The best they could probably do is some random form of evade, somewhat like what nightmare court archers have.

Something which may help survivability however, is by giving our pets an evade status whenever our characters dodge. This would help a lot against large scale AoE effects that activate all at once.

pet dodging is too complicated of a concept for the issue at hand

The simplest fix and the fix that quite a large number of rangers have pushed for is reduced aoe damage.

It’s a simple change that gives them longevity in fights, yet they still are fragile (With obvious exceptions like bear, devourers, etc.) when mobs target them. Obviously this would also need to include cleaves (Why tiny graveling scavengers in AC have a 4 mile cleave radius on autoattacks is beyond me). Either that or they make ranger pets path behind the mob, but pet pathing is terrible enough as it is, Anet has already done a terrible job with all pet pathing, they don’t need to add more to their plate.

I think 90% reduced AOE damage would be an excellent fix. It’s been done in other MMOs with success.

It would also make focusing pets down in pvp a tactical choice (instead of just letting it die to collateral aoe damage) with positive and negative connotations for both the ranger and the person killing the pet. Generally this is what people like to call “balance.”

On a positive note, the hitting moving targets thing is an excellent change and is definitely a step in the right direction.

Reduced AoE damage would be nice. 90% sounds really large, but in some cases my pet dies in just a few AoE hits so we definitely need a high amount of mitigation.

They’re more reliable than you think.

I had a cat going toe to toe with a champion giant in Orr just today because I was making smart calls about when to send him in for a burst of damage and when to pull him back. The cat never died once and it avoided the giant’s AoE stomp every time. The improved signet of the hunt is a godsend for squishy cats and hawks, it lets you dart in and out of battle very nicely.

A solid rule is to think of your pet in terms of player classes. Tanky pets like bears, boars, and drakes can survive roughly the same situations as soldiers (warriors/guardians). Your fragile damage dealers like birds and cats are more analogous to thieves or dagger elementalists. Pick your moment carefully to send them into battle and be ready to quickly swap/heal/retreat them should they come under fire.

If you know you’re headed into a fight with a lot of AoE damage (Subject Alpha in CoE comes to mind) pick something that can either stand back and fire or shrug off a few hits. Devourers are great picks against dungeon bosses. They’re plenty tough, don’t have to go melee, and will naturally knock back and evade if something gets too close.

You know what made me laugh? From warrior’s description:

They can still do some decent damage at range, but they aren’t as good at it as the Ranger (with their pet).

Bri.8354:

We’ve balanced the class around the idea that you always have a pet with you to aid in any fight.”

What is this pet and where we can find them?

Giants aren’t even a tough enemy to fight compared to what you go up against in dungeons. They are so slow, limited, and predictable in their attacks that they cannot compare to most of the enemies you fight who are fast, unpredictable, and in groups.

In CoE answer me this, how exactly do you expect a pet to survive the frost AoE that covers a large portion of the map? The mechanic excepts you do either stand in the middle of an ice AoE or run or dodge out of them. This requires precision and if you try to call your pet it will often get hit in the AoE while it is running to you, or because you cannot control exactly where they stand, they will often run into an AoE while following you.

Pets become a lot more reliable when you know how to use them effectively. There are times when you will be hindered by your pet regardless of what you do, but I’ve found that to be pretty few and far between.

Red Jay.2516:

You know what made me laugh? From warrior’s description:

They can still do some decent damage at range, but they aren’t as good at it as the Ranger (with their pet).

Why is it laughable? It’s pretty true.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Ranger-Shortbow-vs-Warrior-Rifle-DPS-tests/first