Guild Wars 2

Why are rangers limited to 2 pets?
Why can’t rangers swap to any pet that they want when their current one has died?

Allowing rangers to swap when a pet dies will make it so a dodging-pet isn’t even needed.
Just swap your pet when it’s dead. (On a cooldown, of course)

Doesn’t this make more sense? It makes no sense at all to be limited to only 2 pets. Rangers should access to the full assortment.

Just give them a pet-swap cooldown when their pet dies.
Then pets don’t need to have the AI of a human across the board.

I agree. Necs can have multiple minions, so rangers should have multiple pets, and be able to have multiple available to fight. I have even considered recommending that rangers could have a dedicated healing and boon pet (one that doesn’t fight). And while we’re on the topic, how about armor for pets???

jrod.5879:

And while we’re on the topic, how about armor for pets???

I like this bit ^. Allow rangers to give the pet armor with runes, and accessories with runes, it would make it possible to make them useful even in fractals then.

Guys not to be insulting but it doesn’t seem at all like any of you are considering balance with this.

Rangers can swap between dead pets already so I’m guessing you want it to cycle through all the pets or something, because I’m not sure what you’re trying to say. This would not be helpful because you would end up getting a pet you don’t want.

If rangers could swap pets whenever then they would abuse that to the max. They could just keep swapping for quickness or have unlimited pets that can tank anything. With a cooldown there would be no change so if you can please elaborate a little more on your idea that would help me better understand.

Having multiple pets out at once would have too much dps and could require a lot more management which a lot of players might have trouble with. The boon pet could be cool just not sure why it’d be needed, the boon would also need to be something that doesn’t make the ranger OP (which would be pretty difficult).

Pet armor could work if pets first were debuffed but would be best suited imo simply for AR for balance.

“Having multiple pets out at once would have too much dps and could require a lot more management which a lot of players might have trouble with.”

Totally agree. But I wish that pets could have worked a little more like minions as opposed to having pet skills that a player has to manage….too late for that now. Definitely there would have to be a limit, perhaps 2 is enough. But allow those two to be out at the same time. Ai would definitely have to be improved..so it aggros only what you target.

I like the idea of having a heal/support only pet. It could be a pet that doesn’t fight or can’t be killed. It just accompanies you…like a bird maybe. Instead of a plain self-heal…when you click it your animal heals you. Again…no real advantages, just something that could be unique to a ranger to make it a little “cooler”…imo. Or maybe something like when you click your self heal an eagle will do a fly by and heal you, but again it ranger specific, involves animals and no other class would have it.

“Pet armor could work if pets first were debuffed”

I just think it could be a cool addition, even if its only asthetic. Even if it was a simple as your pet automatically gets the same style of armor that you wear…and I know someone’s going to bring up that people mix armor..so just go by the chest piece.

And for the record..I am not sure what “OP” means in this case. I always thought it meant “original post”.

These are just things that I think would make rangers more unique and would definitely make me want to put more time into the ranger class.

There has been talk about potentially adding armor for pets in dungeons only. Just read it on another post from a Dev. That way pets won’t get insta-death past fractal level 20. But I would take it a step further and say all pets should have armor, but the armor will only buff stats in dungeons, because I want my pet to have armor in PVE. I don’t care if it applies stat buffs, I just think it would be a nice touch and fun to customize.

jrod.5879:

There has been talk about potentially adding armor for pets in dungeons only. Just read it on another post from a Dev. That way pets won’t get insta-death past fractal level 20. But I would take it a step further and say all pets should have armor, but the armor will only buff stats in dungeons, because I want my pet to have armor in PVE. I don’t care if it applies stat buffs, I just think it would be a nice touch and fun to customize.

They’ll never have visible armor, that would call for a whole new set of armor models just for pets. If anything they’d give pets an inherent armor rating in dungeons, or just boost their toughness. Just giving them agony resistance would be a nice start.

I don’t understand the OP’s suggestion, pet swaps already have a cooldown and you can swap to any pet you want out of combat, you aren’t restricted. I guess what you’re really asking for is just to be able to change pets during combat?

“Robert Hrouda talked about Rangers in this thread where he posted…I am still here and watching. I’m currently composing a list of ideas and statements from this thread to bring to our balance meetings (held multiple times per week), that I can present to at least talk about with the group.
I go to the meetings as a representative for rangers and dungeons, since I play both of those things extensively. Here’s how my list is looking so far:
Core problems: (Note: we are very aware of both of these things)
-Pet AI.
-Pet management tools
Things to investigate:
-Pets auto attacks only hitting a single target.
-On “return” command, your pet gains swiftness so it can escape out of red rings more easily.
-A button that makes your pet momentarily not take damage. A sort of “Dodge” button for you to control. This is mainly due to us making sure players know how to use their dodge-roll or damage mitigation skills, which pets don’t have, and don’t always know how to escape properly when recalled without a direct pet swap. (NOTE: This is a springboard idea for pets being able to avoid damage)
-Pet/minion AR that is shared with the master’s stats.
-More defensive pet skills.
-Vigor applied to pets turns into swiftness or protection.
-In dungeons, pet’s get more health/armor.”

Taken from Reddit.

What I mean is that they won’t add visible pieces of armor for pets, that would entail a huge amount of extra work for the devs.

jrod.5879:

I agree. Necs can have multiple minions, so rangers should have multiple pets, and be able to have multiple available to fight. I have even considered recommending that rangers could have a dedicated healing and boon pet (one that doesn’t fight). And while we’re on the topic, how about armor for pets???

Like the idea of a support/boon pet. This would be a great asset to dungeons, and improve the ranger’s currently poor group utility.

Daemon.4295:

What I mean is that they won’t add visible pieces of armor for pets, that would entail a huge amount of extra work for the devs.

Job security for them yo.

I like the idea of barding and of being able to outfit them in light/medium/heavy if they could handle it. Could even give pets abilitys based on armor type they are wearing allowing us to choose it, or the pets standard f2 skill.