Guild Wars 2

So, I run a BM build, and my friend was telling me how cat pets are garbage and he challenged me to go through MF without having my pet die, so always liking a challenge I threw on the MB trait and did the dungeon with him, pet didn’t die….

I thought you guys said MF is the hardest instance to keep pets up? It was as easy as keeping my drake up so I have no idea what’s going on with you guys, ill be trying this in other instances too.

PS: Cat had 85-95% up time the entire instance.

It isn’t hard, people are still learning how to manage their pets. Honestly, this is a huge factor is separating the good rangers from the bad ones. People tell me I should use drakes in wvw because canines get blown up. If my pet dies, it is my fault (most of the time, sometimes the pet gets a mind of its own) and I much prefer the team utility provided by a 5 man fear or immobilize than some chain lightning or crappy cone based attack.

Edit: And this isn’t a BM build at all.

Pets suck, Durz, didn’t you know? It’s not like a bear can take two karka by itself…oh wait.

You run a BM build. That’s part of the reason you aren’t having any trouble. I think fractals are the hardest ones personally.

I ran the svanir fractal yesterday with a bear and a jaguar. The bear somehow got aggro on the boss in spite of everyone else attacking. He lasted about 5 seconds before I had to switch pets. As soon as I switched pets the boss teleported up to the ledge and dropped AOE everywhere and killed the jaguar because it insisted on standing in circles 15 feet away from me. Scenarios like this are a common occurrence when you don’t run BM builds.

Killsmith.8169:

You run a BM build. That’s part of the reason you aren’t having any trouble. I think fractals are the hardest ones personally.

I ran the svanir fractal yesterday with a bear and a jaguar. The bear somehow got aggro on the boss in spite of everyone else attacking. He lasted about 5 seconds before I had to switch pets. As soon as I switched pets the boss teleported up to the ledge and dropped AOE everywhere and killed the jaguar because it insisted on standing in circles 15 feet away from me. Scenarios like this are a common occurrence when you don’t run BM builds.

You should have used pets with toughness. And/or micro’d the pet away from the attacks. Also, if not running BM, you should be running guard or SoS to keep the pets up. SotW is good in non BM builds, in fact, it has more mileage there. In a dungeon I would avoid things that aren’t helping you, such as lightning reflexes, which you can almost always do without in dungeons.

How are cats squishy? Because they have the less armor/health compared to other pets. Did you really need me to tell you that?

The ability to micromanage your pet and have it survive in a certain scenario has nothing to do with how ‘squishy’ a pet is.

Ursine: 29982 health – 2061 armor
Dog: 14868 health – 2061 armor
Cat: 14868 health – 1374 armor
Devourer: 14868 health – 2748 armor
Bird: 14868 health – 1374 armor
Drake: 22425 health – 2061 armor
Spider: 22425 health – 1374 armor
Pig: 22425 health – 2061 armor
Moa: 22425 health – 1374 armor
Armor Fish: 22452 health – 2748 armor
Jellyfish: 22425 health – 1374 armor
Shark: 22425 health – 2061 armor

So to me this thread is rather pointless. Would be the same if I would call my Mesmer not squishy just because I survived a zerg in berserker gear by using my abilities.

Chopps.5047:

Killsmith.8169:

You run a BM build. That’s part of the reason you aren’t having any trouble. I think fractals are the hardest ones personally.

I ran the svanir fractal yesterday with a bear and a jaguar. The bear somehow got aggro on the boss in spite of everyone else attacking. He lasted about 5 seconds before I had to switch pets. As soon as I switched pets the boss teleported up to the ledge and dropped AOE everywhere and killed the jaguar because it insisted on standing in circles 15 feet away from me. Scenarios like this are a common occurrence when you don’t run BM builds.

You should have used pets with toughness. And/or micro’d the pet away from the attacks. Also, if not running BM, you should be running guard or SoS to keep the pets up. SotW is good in non BM builds, in fact, it has more mileage there. In a dungeon I would avoid things that aren’t helping you, such as lightning reflexes, which you can almost always do without in dungeons.

Yeah, I’m actually running SoS, SotW, and SotH. SoS was on cooldown from an earlier batch of AoE. I ran Devourers on the subsequent grawl fractal and it didn’t fare too much better. It seems like it only takes a little bad luck with aggro after a pet swap to put you into minute long cooldowns for the rest of the fight. I’m really not big on micromanaging the pet, and that could be the reason I’m having trouble. It probably doesn’t help that I run a lot of this stuff with a staff ele that rains so much fire down that you can’t see boss windups or red rings sometimes.

Durzlla.6295:

I thought you guys said MF is the hardest instance to keep pets up?

Huh, who have said that? This is the easiest dungeon in the game by far.

In comparison to all the other pets; they’re made of 100% refined squish.

However “being squishy” != “dying instantly” || “useless”, if you’re managing your pets skilfully then your kitty probably won’t end up being buried at the end of the garden in a plastic box any time soon and will make it worth your while by dishing out huge amounts of damage.

It’s also worth noting that due to their low armour/hitpoints they are actually LESS likely to take aggro than the tankier pets, further helping to keep them in the fight.

I’m not sure who told you that about Molten Facility. But, moving on.

There’s nothing wrong with pet survivability when you spec for it.
That’s the whole problem. We’ll never conquer our issues with build diversity if there are unspoken build requirements to keep our profession mechanic from shattering into pieces all over the dungeon floor.

I’ve been told that by several people which i found concerning, because like many of you, i thought MF was one of the easier dungeons out there.

That being said, I’m now tempted to make a build that doesn’t utilize BM at all to see the difference, i’m a HUGE beast master/minion using person on all profs i play, so putting points into them and just decking them out is something i’ve always done in GW2.

And by being “Squishy” i should’ve said die all the time, very misleading, cats are most certainly made of tissue paper.

One of the ranger’s big problems, to me, is that they have 4 trait lines that boost stats on one part of the character, 1 trait line that boosts stats on the other part of the character, and no trait lines that boost stats for the entire character.

Why couldn’t the first 4 trait lines have effected the stats on both ranger and pet while beast mastery lowered the pet swap and pet skill cooldowns?

Because every profession mechanic has 1 trait line for that mechanic. For rangers, it’s the pet attribute.

Straegen.2938:

Pets are squishy in general because they cannot dodge. Kudos to you for keeping your pet alive in the final fight with the two bosses but you must be running a sturdy BM build to do that.

Well -i’m- sturdy, my kitty -became- sturdy due to MB.

Killsmith.8169:

One of the ranger’s big problems, to me, is that they have 4 trait lines that boost stats on one part of the character, 1 trait line that boosts stats on the other part of the character, and no trait lines that boost stats for the entire character.

Why couldn’t the first 4 trait lines have effected the stats on both ranger and pet while beast mastery lowered the pet swap and pet skill cooldowns?

You know what? Why doesn’t Anet just make it so that BM pets and non BM pets have the same stats but BM pets have faster skill recharges and a faster pet swap than the non BMs? Then over half of the issues with pets would be solved because when you have 30 BM -no one- worth their weight complains about pets it’s when they have weaker pets that it’s an issue.

I’ll agree with that plan of action.

I don’t think Empathy should be our profession mechanic based stat. It’s much too good. They can’t possibly balance without taking it into consideration…which is just a nice way of saying balancing takes it for granted. (or at least, it feels that way)

It’s not like our traits couldn’t use a massive overhaul anyway. May as well pull that weed while they’re in there.

But what would you replace it with?

So the community consensus seems to be leash pets in spvp, nerf rangers in spvp, buff ranger spirits, rework traitlines, leave pet leash alone in pve/wvw, buff longbow auto, and remove pet death penalty CD from pve.

I don’t necessarily agree with all of that (particularly the death penalty) but I figured it was good to try and summarize this stuff since so much is thrown around. Anyone want to chime in on this? I bet the devs like some of those ideas and loathe others.

Chopps.5047:

So the community consensus seems to be leash pets in spvp, nerf rangers in spvp, buff ranger spirits, rework traitlines, leave pet leash alone in pve/wvw, buff longbow auto, and remove pet death penalty CD from pve.

I don’t necessarily agree with all of that (particularly the death penalty) but I figured it was good to try and summarize this stuff since so much is thrown around. Anyone want to chime in on this? I bet the devs like some of those ideas and loathe others.

Change our prof specific stat to be “Pet skills (F2 and the 3 auto cast ones) recharge faster” instead of giving stats to the pet, then alter the pet stats appropriately.

PS: You forgot the most common one Chopps (this is said by non rangers btw) “Make pets scale off their owners stats so they can’t have both survivability and damage!”

I’m not sure if you were being sarcastic or not in that reply, Durz.

If our damage is split and we have two health bars to manage, why shouldn’t 30 points in marksmanship add 300 power to the ranger and the pet? That way when I trait my ranger for the damage/survivability I want, my pet is similarly built. The main drawback is that you won’t have bunker rangers that have good condition damage and power/precision pets that eat people’s faces.

Actually, if you want a replacement for BM passive bonuses, why not lower the recharge and let your old pet persist for x amount of time after the swap? Then you have two pets mauling things for a few seconds. Actually, that two pet thing would probably fit better as a grandmaster trait. But, I think 5 out of the 8 classes have a recharge built into the mechanic specific trait line. Warrior gets bonus burst damage, and necro gets the increased life force.

Killsmith.8169:

I’m assuming that’s sarcasm(if not, then sorry) and that’s not what I’m saying at all. If our damage is split and we have two health bars to manage, why shouldn’t 30 points in marksmanship add 300 power to the ranger and the pet? That way when I trait my ranger for the damage/survivability I want, my pet is similarly built. The main drawback is that you won’t have bunker rangers that have good condition damage and power/precision pets that eat people’s faces.

That need not be the case. If ANet were to rework (very unlikely) the existing pet mechanics and traits into new pet mechanics and traits; they could rework 3 traits for pets to boost a certain area of expertise: Damage/Support/Survival. This way people selecting either of those traits could give their pets an additional boost in certain areas.

Because pets aren’t strong enough already.

You probably ran 30 BM and Guard. That alone is a deficient setup for maximum output in a team.

You gave up somewhere either crit damage from skirmishing or power and burst capacity (beast master’s signet is 25% extra damage for 8 seconds) to have a cat up most of the time.

So you brought your cat, but part of potential damage was lost in order to have an alive cat, you sacrificed group utility by having to bring Guard, which is something other classes besides minion necro or phantasm mesmer (mesmers are pretty much forced into shatter specs for dungeons) don’t suffer.

What did your ranger bring to that group? Certainly not damage. Burning a guardian, ele, or engineer can cover while putting out better damage (aoe to boot). Group prot from spirit? Guardian and ele got group prot covered. Did those traps do anything against bosses? Did you bring spotter? Too bad, warrior brings the superior Power version while also bringing flags that give over tripple the benefit of spotter plus the activated banner boons.

Oh, and Warrior Banner is an instant rez on placement, while ranger spirit needs to be set, and then wait 2 seconds for the rez command (both banner and spirit have cast time setups).

Ranger shouts and their traits are completely selfish except for the now decrepit search and rescue, while warrior shouts benefit the group and can be traited to even heal allies or remove conditions.

Indoles.1467:

It isn’t hard, people are still learning how to manage their pets. Honestly, this is a huge factor is separating the good rangers from the bad ones. People tell me I should use drakes in wvw because canines get blown up. If my pet dies, it is my fault (most of the time, sometimes the pet gets a mind of its own) and I much prefer the team utility provided by a 5 man fear or immobilize than some chain lightning or crappy cone based attack.

Edit: And this isn’t a BM build at all.

This sums up the pet situation imo. Using the right pets with the right content and knowing that each pet can be more effective depending on your level of micromanagement is important in keeping that extra body alive and effective.
Using selfish versions pets like the lynx/jaguar in a dungeon is normally not good but using the jungle stalker or snow leopard can be more useful to a team, with might and chill respectively while still keeping the extra damage from cats while supporting the team.

Lorian.4028:

Indoles.1467:

It isn’t hard, people are still learning how to manage their pets. Honestly, this is a huge factor is separating the good rangers from the bad ones. People tell me I should use drakes in wvw because canines get blown up. If my pet dies, it is my fault (most of the time, sometimes the pet gets a mind of its own) and I much prefer the team utility provided by a 5 man fear or immobilize than some chain lightning or crappy cone based attack.

Edit: And this isn’t a BM build at all.

This sums up the pet situation imo. Using the right pets with the right content and knowing that each pet can be more effective depending on your level of micromanagement is important in keeping that extra body alive and effective.
Using selfish versions pets like the lynx/jaguar in a dungeon is normally not good but using the jungle stalker or snow leopard can be more useful to a team, with might and chill respectively while still keeping the extra damage from cats while supporting the team.

Using a drake or hound means you just robbed your team of higher total damage done.

Damage IS team utility, and the most important one in this game.

It just so happens that you have no option other than to rob your team of optimized damage by playing a class forced to bring smaller portions of its DPS to dungeons.

Actually, if you want a replacement for BM passive bonuses, why not lower the recharge and let your old pet persist for x amount of time after the swap? Then you have two pets mauling things for a few seconds. Actually, that two pet thing would probably fit better as a grandmaster trait. But, I think 5 out of the 8 classes have a recharge built into the mechanic specific trait line. Warrior gets bonus burst damage, and necro gets the increased life force.

That’s probably too overpowered for a stat, but I’m still in love with the idea of both pets out at once and have been since the days of beta and Alpha Strike. I think if that would go anywhere, it probably would be an Elite.

I think you’re onto something there, using other classes as a guideline.

Shredding Recharge Rate reduces the cooldown on Shatters up to 30%,
Burst Damage increases the damage on Burst skill up to 3%,
Virtue Recharge Rate reduces the cooldown on Virtues up to 30%,
Toolbelt Recharge Rate reduces the cooldown on Toolbelt up to 30%,
Steal Recharge Rate reduces the cooldown of Steal up to 30%,
Life Force Pool increases the size of the Lifeforce pool up to 30%,
Attunement Recharge Rate reduces the cooldown of Attunement up to 60%,

So if we wanted to follow the theme; Pet Attribute Bonus should be reducing Swap and F2 cooldowns up to 30%. Pretty kitten close to Durzlla’s suggestion. That would certainly be valuable, but not ‘everybody needs 30 points in BM for the profession mechanic to work in higher end content’ valuable. Just need to create replacements for Commanding Voice and Loud Whistle.

Zenith.7301:

Lorian.4028:

Indoles.1467:

It isn’t hard, people are still learning how to manage their pets. Honestly, this is a huge factor is separating the good rangers from the bad ones. People tell me I should use drakes in wvw because canines get blown up. If my pet dies, it is my fault (most of the time, sometimes the pet gets a mind of its own) and I much prefer the team utility provided by a 5 man fear or immobilize than some chain lightning or crappy cone based attack.

Edit: And this isn’t a BM build at all.

This sums up the pet situation imo. Using the right pets with the right content and knowing that each pet can be more effective depending on your level of micromanagement is important in keeping that extra body alive and effective.
Using selfish versions pets like the lynx/jaguar in a dungeon is normally not good but using the jungle stalker or snow leopard can be more useful to a team, with might and chill respectively while still keeping the extra damage from cats while supporting the team.

Using a drake or hound means you just robbed your team of higher total damage done.

Damage IS team utility, and the most important one in this game.

It just so happens that you have no option other than to rob your team of optimized damage by playing a class forced to bring smaller portions of its DPS to dungeons.

True but if sacrificing that DPS means that the team makes it through an encounter more safely and successfully I know the teams I play with would prefer a slightly slower successful run than anything that is rushed and full of pointless danger when we can go a little slower and make sure everything works. So while I understand why DPS is more valuable to some I am more interested in how a five man team can make any dungeon trivial with proper team work and role selection not just random glass cannons everywhere.

@Zenith actually I did not bring Guard, I used Sick’Em, I also ran axe/axe (as did a lv 25 ranger in the group who was using drake + fern hound), we cleared the instance in 20min with 2 guardians and a warrior.

Fights normally went as so: Guardians pulled everything together, rangers would WD in a position that made all group members safe from projectiles, both pets thrown onto called target via Sick’Em and/or sig of wild active for burst.

Ran with this group 3 times, between me and the other ranger we had 25stacks of vuln an 25 stacks of bleed on the entire enemy ball, -my- gear is total kitten, my weapons were Rares, I run in Magi + Cleric armor, my build is 0/0/10/30/30 so my cat has a perma +5% damage boost (normally not a cat).

Only time someone went down was the low lv ranger who had the RNG gods laugh in his face as he got smacked by every flame circle at once during the final boss fight. Had me and the other ranger, one of the guardians, and the warrior actually been in full exotic gear instead of a mix match of Rares, exotics, no runes/sigils and some greens it would’ve been A LOT faster than 20min.

So please, you have no idea what you’re talking about, pets hit like a truck he I was hardly gimping my group by allowing my pet to regularly hit the enemy for +2.5k damage in a build not built for damage, a few alterations and he could’ve been hitting a lot harder.

Durzlla.6295:

I thought you guys said MF is the hardest instance to keep pets up? It was as easy as keeping my drake up so I have no idea what’s going on with you guys, ill be trying this in other instances too.

Who’re these “you guys?” Since all I’ve heard about MF and ranger are spirit build and AoE management. Seriously, the dungeon isn’t hard at all. Sure there’re a lot of AoEs throughout, but none of them(other than berserker fire shock wave) deal critical damage that could one shot a pet. Spirits on the other hand, is a different story.

Durzlla.6295:

@Zenith actually I did not bring Guard, I used Sick’Em, I also ran axe/axe (as did a lv 25 ranger in the group who was using drake + fern hound), we cleared the instance in 20min with 2 guardians and a warrior.

Fights normally went as so: Guardians pulled everything together, rangers would WD in a position that made all group members safe from projectiles, both pets thrown onto called target via Sick’Em and/or sig of wild active for burst.

Ran with this group 3 times, between me and the other ranger we had 25stacks of vuln an 25 stacks of bleed on the entire enemy ball, -my- gear is total kitten, my weapons were Rares, I run in Magi + Cleric armor, my build is 0/0/10/30/30 so my cat has a perma +5% damage boost (normally not a cat).

Only time someone went down was the low lv ranger who had the RNG gods laugh in his face as he got smacked by every flame circle at once during the final boss fight. Had me and the other ranger, one of the guardians, and the warrior actually been in full exotic gear instead of a mix match of Rares, exotics, no runes/sigils and some greens it would’ve been A LOT faster than 20min.

So please, you have no idea what you’re talking about, pets hit like a truck he I was hardly gimping my group by allowing my pet to regularly hit the enemy for +2.5k damage in a build not built for damage, a few alterations and he could’ve been hitting a lot harder.

Hahahahahaha, you run2 guardians in a group on a 30 BM build and then say pets are fine.

Guardians mitigate the damage the group takes immensely. In fractals more deficient groups just stack guardians because projectile negation and aoe healing is actually effective there.

TBH I don’t even buy your “20 min” run. A lot of the time I’ve seen these wild claims for you but never have I seen anything to substantiate them, not even screen caps.

Zenith.7301:

Durzlla.6295:

@Zenith actually I did not bring Guard, I used Sick’Em, I also ran axe/axe (as did a lv 25 ranger in the group who was using drake + fern hound), we cleared the instance in 20min with 2 guardians and a warrior.

Fights normally went as so: Guardians pulled everything together, rangers would WD in a position that made all group members safe from projectiles, both pets thrown onto called target via Sick’Em and/or sig of wild active for burst.

Ran with this group 3 times, between me and the other ranger we had 25stacks of vuln an 25 stacks of bleed on the entire enemy ball, -my- gear is total kitten, my weapons were Rares, I run in Magi + Cleric armor, my build is 0/0/10/30/30 so my cat has a perma +5% damage boost (normally not a cat).

Only time someone went down was the low lv ranger who had the RNG gods laugh in his face as he got smacked by every flame circle at once during the final boss fight. Had me and the other ranger, one of the guardians, and the warrior actually been in full exotic gear instead of a mix match of Rares, exotics, no runes/sigils and some greens it would’ve been A LOT faster than 20min.

So please, you have no idea what you’re talking about, pets hit like a truck he I was hardly gimping my group by allowing my pet to regularly hit the enemy for +2.5k damage in a build not built for damage, a few alterations and he could’ve been hitting a lot harder.

Hahahahahaha, you run2 guardians in a group on a 30 BM build and then say pets are fine.

Guardians mitigate the damage the group takes immensely. In fractals more deficient groups just stack guardians because projectile negation and aoe healing is actually effective there.

TBH I don’t even buy your “20 min” run. A lot of the time I’ve seen these wild claims for you but never have I seen anything to substantiate them, not even screen caps.

The “rangers would WD in a position that made all group members safe from projectiles” also sounds overstated or made up. I doubt the entire team would all bunch together in the tiny radius of whirling defense to be protected from the single gunner in groups while the many melee enemies rushed in and threw down shock-waves and the like.

Don’t you think one of the two guardians using wall of reflection while the rangers used auto-attacks would have been far more effective?

Wow, why all the hate? If you don’t think he’s being honest, go run a dungeon or two with him. But until you know one way or another, give him the benefit of the doubt.

Killsmith.8169:

Wow, why all the hate? If you don’t think he’s being honest, go run a dungeon or two with him. But until you know one way or another, give him the benefit of the doubt.

I would usually, but he’s overstated things before. I get him and Chopps are trying to find the best in the ranger, but it seems like their bias causes them to overstate things or deny issues at times.

Giving people a false sense that something is good is just as bad as giving people a false sense that something is bad. There seems to be a lot of both in the forums so hopefully the developers can see past it and make the right decisions when taking feedback.

Bri.8354:

Zenith.7301:

Durzlla.6295:

@Zenith actually I did not bring Guard, I used Sick’Em, I also ran axe/axe (as did a lv 25 ranger in the group who was using drake + fern hound), we cleared the instance in 20min with 2 guardians and a warrior.

Fights normally went as so: Guardians pulled everything together, rangers would WD in a position that made all group members safe from projectiles, both pets thrown onto called target via Sick’Em and/or sig of wild active for burst.

Ran with this group 3 times, between me and the other ranger we had 25stacks of vuln an 25 stacks of bleed on the entire enemy ball, -my- gear is total kitten, my weapons were Rares, I run in Magi + Cleric armor, my build is 0/0/10/30/30 so my cat has a perma +5% damage boost (normally not a cat).

Only time someone went down was the low lv ranger who had the RNG gods laugh in his face as he got smacked by every flame circle at once during the final boss fight. Had me and the other ranger, one of the guardians, and the warrior actually been in full exotic gear instead of a mix match of Rares, exotics, no runes/sigils and some greens it would’ve been A LOT faster than 20min.

So please, you have no idea what you’re talking about, pets hit like a truck he I was hardly gimping my group by allowing my pet to regularly hit the enemy for +2.5k damage in a build not built for damage, a few alterations and he could’ve been hitting a lot harder.

Hahahahahaha, you run2 guardians in a group on a 30 BM build and then say pets are fine.

Guardians mitigate the damage the group takes immensely. In fractals more deficient groups just stack guardians because projectile negation and aoe healing is actually effective there.

TBH I don’t even buy your “20 min” run. A lot of the time I’ve seen these wild claims for you but never have I seen anything to substantiate them, not even screen caps.

The “rangers would WD in a position that made all group members safe from projectiles” also sounds overstated or made up. I doubt the entire team would all bunch together in the tiny radius of whirling defense to be protected from the single gunner in groups while the many melee enemies rushed in and threw down shock-waves and the like.

Don’t you think one of the two guardians using wall of reflection while the rangers used auto-attacks would have been far more effective?

No it wouldn’t, if the guardians were using wallof reflection everyone would be doing 25% less damage because there wouldn’t be 25 stacks of vuln on the 5 enemies pulled together (no trash group has more than 5), and tiny radius?

one Whirling defense has a 300 diameter, 2 rangers using WD by each other means there’s a 600 unit wall protecting the group from projectiles, which is between the enemies and the allies because all the enemies were PULLED TOGETHER by the guardian(s).

And seeing as how i was a BM built ranger (idk what the other one was but that hardly matters since he only had 15 points to spend anyway) so if i were just auto attacking we wouldn’t have been doing kitten for damage by auto attacking and was doing much better putting bleeds and vuln up on all the enemies and throwing my pet on the target we’re focusing.

Bri.8354:

Killsmith.8169:

Wow, why all the hate? If you don’t think he’s being honest, go run a dungeon or two with him. But until you know one way or another, give him the benefit of the doubt.

I would usually, but he’s overstated things before. I get him and Chopps are trying to find the best in the ranger, but it seems like their bias causes them to overstate things or deny issues at times.

Giving people a false sense that something is good is just as bad as giving people a false sense that something is bad. There seems to be a lot of both in the forums so hopefully the developers can see past it and make the right decisions when taking feedback.

I wont lie, i do like to blow things out of proportion when it comes to raw numbers (Oh yeah i was doing 4k damage with barrage ticks!! is a famous example), but i don’t blow gameplay and scenarios out of proportion, the math nonsense is Sebrents expertise let him play with his numbers, i don’t enjoy that i’d rather play the game.

If you -want- to play with my sometime by all means hit me up in game, i’d enjoy playing with most of the rangers on this forum, it’d be fun. But as i’ve said a multitude of times, i’m a PvP player, and my Pve gear isn’t even full exotic let alone being close to what i’d need for speed clearing. “Guyz i’m supportz ranger!” is how i tend to play PvE which is why this 20min run was so weird and amazing for me xD.

Was i carried through it? Maybe? But if 2 guardians and a warrior are able to carry 2 “dead weight” rangers through an instance in 20 minutes i think there’s bigger problems out there… I’m pretty sure you guys are underestimating the amount of Synergy that seemed to just be there for our team.

So you run the tankiest pet build (full BM with Master’s Bond) in one of the easiest dungeons in the game and you say you don’t understand why people have squishy pet problems? I think you’re being serious but honestly, this comes off as a troll post.

Most rangers will swap pets and never make use of Master’s Bond and most ranger won’t tank their own personal build to put 30 points in Beast Mastery. If you don’t understand why having a pet with a bonus +300 toughness and vitality from trait points and a further +200 to both from full stacks of master’s bond (I don’t know if you bring Signet of the Wild or Signet of Stone to further boost the pet), I honestly don’t think this is a discussion worth having.

To put it into perspective for you, I can keep a cat alive for the entire dungeon until the boss fight with only 15 points in Beastmastery and Signet of Stone and Signet of the Wild (both of which I frequently use the actives now so the passive defensive benefits aren’t being used). I do this all without gimping my personal DPS or durability to buff my pet while maintaining an active play style for myself (traits in other lines give me things to do, the BM line just makes the pet better at what it does and make me feel like I’m the pet).

The pet is the class mechanic, it is always around and it always comes at an opportunity cost of the ranger being better at what he himself does. A class mechanic as central to the class as the pet needs to be 100% reliable in every single build, not just ones that heavily invest in Beastmastery. Congratulations, you had a pet survive one of the easiest dungeons in the game (the only boss fight and real threat to the pet is at the end) using what is pretty much the tankiest pet build in the game. You didn’t prove anything that people were contesting. Your post should read “how are cats with a bonus +500 to both defensive stats (and a ranger wearing healing armour with a healing build and 30 less trait points) squishy?”.

Warriors and guardians can carry anyone.

There’s actually a video of a Molten Facility solo with guardian. Guardians really do trivialize threats in the game because most mobs in the game are not terrormancers or engineers or classes that remove the OP boons guardians are constantly stacking on the group.

It’s very hard for you to die when you have a guardian around giving prot, regen, offhealing, aoe blinds, and putting up walls. Then comes in the warrior or thief and blows things up.

I love my ranger and would not play anything else but necro in spvp. Condi builds are very good in spvp. They are NOT good in dungeons.

Durzlla.6295:

I wont lie, i do like to blow things out of proportion when it comes to raw numbers (Oh yeah i was doing 4k damage with barrage ticks!! is a famous example), but i don’t blow gameplay and scenarios out of proportion, the math nonsense is Sebrents expertise let him play with his numbers, i don’t enjoy that i’d rather play the game.

If you -want- to play with my sometime by all means hit me up in game, i’d enjoy playing with most of the rangers on this forum, it’d be fun. But as i’ve said a multitude of times, i’m a PvP player, and my Pve gear isn’t even full exotic let alone being close to what i’d need for speed clearing. “Guyz i’m supportz ranger!” is how i tend to play PvE which is why this 20min run was so weird and amazing for me xD.

Was i carried through it? Maybe? But if 2 guardians and a warrior are able to carry 2 “dead weight” rangers through an instance in 20 minutes i think there’s bigger problems out there… I’m pretty sure you guys are underestimating the amount of Synergy that seemed to just be there for our team.

To be fair I’m a bit negative at times and make things sound worse than they really are. And I’d enjoy doing some dungeons with you some time, you can add me if you like.

About whirling defense, its radius is not even close to 300. I just logged into the game and tested it to make sure, and its reflect radius is about half of a placed (non-activated, non-traited) trap which has 120 radius. So it actually has a radius closer to 60, which is VERY small.

I think he meant diameter. Wiki has it at a 150 radius, which would be 300 diameter.

Bri.8354:

Durzlla.6295:

I wont lie, i do like to blow things out of proportion when it comes to raw numbers (Oh yeah i was doing 4k damage with barrage ticks!! is a famous example), but i don’t blow gameplay and scenarios out of proportion, the math nonsense is Sebrents expertise let him play with his numbers, i don’t enjoy that i’d rather play the game.

If you -want- to play with my sometime by all means hit me up in game, i’d enjoy playing with most of the rangers on this forum, it’d be fun. But as i’ve said a multitude of times, i’m a PvP player, and my Pve gear isn’t even full exotic let alone being close to what i’d need for speed clearing. “Guyz i’m supportz ranger!” is how i tend to play PvE which is why this 20min run was so weird and amazing for me xD.

Was i carried through it? Maybe? But if 2 guardians and a warrior are able to carry 2 “dead weight” rangers through an instance in 20 minutes i think there’s bigger problems out there… I’m pretty sure you guys are underestimating the amount of Synergy that seemed to just be there for our team.

To be fair I’m a bit negative at times and make things sound worse than they really are. And I’d enjoy doing some dungeons with you some time, you can add me if you like.

About whirling defense, its radius is not even close to 300. I just logged into the game and tested it to make sure, and its reflect radius is about half of a placed (non-activated, non-traited) trap which has 120 radius. So it actually has a radius closer to 60, which is VERY small.

Tooltip says Radius is 150 (it goes further than the animation shows), i said diameter because we stood side by side and the group stood behind us/in us and attacked through it, so it’d be 600 units across.

Durzlla.6295:

Tooltip says Radius is 150 (it goes further than the animation shows), i said diameter because we stood side by side and the group stood behind us/in us and attacked through it, so it’d be 600 units across.

My bad, but still, its reflection diameter is smaller than that.

The tool-tip is for the damage radius, not the reflect radius. The damage extends out to 150 while the reflect radius is closer to 60-75 (too hard to tell exactly, but it only reflected projectiles that reached half way into the diameter of a trap, which has a radius of 120).

Chopps.5047:

So the community consensus seems to be leash pets in spvp, nerf rangers in spvp, buff ranger spirits, rework traitlines, leave pet leash alone in pve/wvw, buff longbow auto, and remove pet death penalty CD from pve.

Community consensus? I think not. If we talk about the nerfs, those are the opinions of some very vocal minority that are running a campaign against rangers this month, working their kitten off and pulling all the strings to try and get us nerfed – they want their free lunch, and rangers have always been seen as just that.

We’ve waited a long time for some fixes to our class, primarily to our pets. The fixes in this last patch was a step in the right direction, but none of the fixes have boosted our pets to invincible levels, like people are stating. 2k more health for my jaguars in pvp means nothing more than that they may be able to take another hit or two – that’s it.

People seem to be forgetting that master’s bond and beast mastery increase all of a pet’s stats, not just toughness and vitality. I don’t run master’s bond, but under the right circumstances, I’ve seen my drake crit for as high as 7.8k. Meanwhile, under the same circumstances, I’m critting for over 4k with Maul. Am I dealing as much DPS as a warrior? Not even close. But putting 30 into beast mastery certainly doesn’t kitten my damage.

I could get +300 power if I replaced my beast mastery points with points in marksmanship, but my pet would lose 300 power, In addition to 300 points in every other stat. To me, beast mastery is a traitline that just makes sense to invest in.

Quarktastic.1027:

People seem to be forgetting that master’s bond and beast mastery increase all of a pet’s stats, not just toughness and vitality. I don’t run master’s bond, but under the right circumstances, I’ve seen my drake crit for as high as 7.8k. Meanwhile, under the same circumstances, I’m critting for over 4k with Maul. Am I dealing as much DPS as a warrior? Not even close. But putting 30 into beast mastery certainly doesn’t kitten my damage.

I could get +300 power if I replaced my beast mastery points with points in marksmanship, but my pet would lose 300 power, In addition to 300 points in every other stat. To me, beast mastery is a traitline that just makes sense to invest in.

You don’t spend in traitlines just for the raw stats. The major traits are a large part of the build, and major traits for BM are garbage in the damage increase department.

Signet of the beastmaster gives you a 25% damage increase to you and your pet for 8 seconds every 42 seconds. That’s an important burst tool. It also gives you better personal survival through signet of stone’s immunity, so you can melee safely for 6 seconds even during a dangerous phase.

It’s also worth noting that the increase from power on you as a player on berserker gear with 110% crit damage bonus and over 54% crit chance is much higher than a drake’s benefit from power when at best they can get 30% bonus crit damage.

So when you got 30 BM, you are sacrificing not only the raw stat for yourself from either skirmishing or marksman, but you are sacrificing beastmaster’s signet trait, and you are sacrificing 10% extra damage from flanking on skirmishing’s 25 passive.

Zenith.7301:

Quarktastic.1027:

People seem to be forgetting that master’s bond and beast mastery increase all of a pet’s stats, not just toughness and vitality. I don’t run master’s bond, but under the right circumstances, I’ve seen my drake crit for as high as 7.8k. Meanwhile, under the same circumstances, I’m critting for over 4k with Maul. Am I dealing as much DPS as a warrior? Not even close. But putting 30 into beast mastery certainly doesn’t kitten my damage.

I could get +300 power if I replaced my beast mastery points with points in marksmanship, but my pet would lose 300 power, In addition to 300 points in every other stat. To me, beast mastery is a traitline that just makes sense to invest in.

You don’t spend in traitlines just for the raw stats. The major traits are a large part of the build, and major traits for BM are garbage in the damage increase department.

Signet of the beastmaster gives you a 25% damage increase to you and your pet for 8 seconds every 42 seconds. That’s an important burst tool. It also gives you better personal survival through signet of stone’s immunity, so you can melee safely for 6 seconds even during a dangerous phase.

It’s also worth noting that the increase from power on you as a player on berserker gear with 110% crit damage bonus and over 54% crit chance is much higher than a drake’s benefit from power when at best they can get 30% bonus crit damage.

So when you got 30 BM, you are sacrificing not only the raw stat for yourself from either skirmishing or marksman, but you are sacrificing beastmaster’s signet trait, and you are sacrificing 10% extra damage from flanking on skirmishing’s 25 passive.

So, you hate beast mastery. Nothing anyone can do to change that. But when nearly half my total damage is tied up in an AI that can be easily killed, I would rather ensure it has the best chance of survival possible.

Signets are nice. I even use signet of the wild’s active from time to time to increase my pet’s burst. That’s right, I use signet of the wild, completely untraited. Come at me bro.

I’m pretty sure Sick’Em makes your pet deal more damage (assuming it hits the target for the full 10s) than you and your pet boosted with sig of wild…

Durzlla.6295:

I’m pretty sure Sick’Em makes your pet deal more damage (assuming it hits the target for the full 10s) than you and your pet boosted with sig of wild…

25% extra damage and stability for both of you for 8 seconds, 10% extra damage from flanking for you vs. 40% extra damage for the pet and nothing for you.

Dojo’s calculations still put the pet at around 40% of your total damage.

Zenith.7301:

Durzlla.6295:

I’m pretty sure Sick’Em makes your pet deal more damage (assuming it hits the target for the full 10s) than you and your pet boosted with sig of wild…

25% extra damage and stability for both of you for 8 seconds, 10% extra damage from flanking for you vs. 40% extra damage for the pet and nothing for you.

Dojo’s calculations still put the pet at around 40% of your total damage.

Why would you get 10% from flanking in one but not the other? And not gonna lie, I kittening LOVE my BM build of 30/10/0/0/30 build, those signet actives are awesome, i just don’t really use it in PvE because i don’t like multiple gear sets and i just wanna pretend to be the support character of the group in PvE because i don’t tend to take that aspect of the game too seriously xD.

PS: I was assuming that we were in an environment without much CC, if there were a lot of Dazes/ KDs/ KBs etc Sig of Wild would be better hands down, no questions asked.

IMHO in PvE 30 BM is a must, 15 nature magic is debate able but 30 BM will increase your overall damage contribution more than anything else.

Durzlla.6295:

Zenith.7301:

Durzlla.6295:

I’m pretty sure Sick’Em makes your pet deal more damage (assuming it hits the target for the full 10s) than you and your pet boosted with sig of wild…

25% extra damage and stability for both of you for 8 seconds, 10% extra damage from flanking for you vs. 40% extra damage for the pet and nothing for you.

Dojo’s calculations still put the pet at around 40% of your total damage.

Why would you get 10% from flanking in one but not the other? And not gonna lie, I kittening LOVE my BM build of 30/10/0/0/30 build, those signet actives are awesome, i just don’t really use it in PvE because i don’t like multiple gear sets and i just wanna pretend to be the support character of the group in PvE because i don’t tend to take that aspect of the game too seriously xD.

PS: I was assuming that we were in an environment without much CC, if there were a lot of Dazes/ KDs/ KBs etc Sig of Wild would be better hands down, no questions asked.

For example, since we were talking about Molten Facility, gunner loves his little jump that aoe knockbacks. If you are meleeing, this is more of a disruption to your DPS.

Granted, the guardians can bring stand your ground, but it’s not something you can always rely on, and SyG is shorter duration so you can melee till it’s about to run out and then chain it with the signet.

The thing about running 30 BM is that you either lose the 25 in skirmishing, or go for 25 in skirmishing but only get 15 in Marksman. And TBH, marksman has weak traits for the first major trait slot.

Killsmith.8169:

I’m not sure if you were being sarcastic or not in that reply, Durz.

If our damage is split and we have two health bars to manage, why shouldn’t 30 points in marksmanship add 300 power to the ranger and the pet? That way when I trait my ranger for the damage/survivability I want, my pet is similarly built.

Because you have different pet types for the different builds? If you want a tanky pet, bears. You want damage? Birds and owls. Ranged? Devourvers. Ranged condition/support? Spiders.

And so on.