Guild Wars 2

Well, I think you’re getting upset over nothing. The fact is that those pets are there for GW1 players to have a head start on which pets they get to roam with since basically you would get 4 extra starting pets. Plus..unique skins, hello? lol

PLUS, you get to run duel ravens. I only wish I could do that.

You’re fine, my man. Rock on! That’s three big advantages you get for being a loyal ANET fan.

Also, I should point out that they had to reduce the vitality not to gimp you guys to make people like me feel better. Rather, the way I understand it, ANET doesn’t balance this profession for duel ravens or duel spiders. I mean, duel ravens is really, really good because you can keep dishing out hard hitting blinds. So to make it fair they must reduce the vitality of the pet.

Brett.4305:

Good point made about the dual pets (dual ravens, for example.) Because people
surely would. Such would give an unfair advantage.

For additional starting pets … I wish that I knew at launch there were so many charmable pets in Lion’s Arch. And a safe area for lvl 1s or 2s.

Although I didn’t identify perma-stowing my pet to avoid aggro in Orr as “class
balance” there are 2 thief players that expressed their displeasure in this. I really
don’t care what a thief things about ranger mechanics. Some people, in the game, as
well as in real life, don’t want others to be “equal” as they see their own (imagined) strength diminished.
I am hoping to get some insight (OK, speculation) into how anet sees the situation
of our traits, skills, pets, etc. Are they actually testing improvements.? Or is every fine?

I want to keep hope alive …

Everything’s not fine but the class isn’t broken. There’s some improvements to be made to pets (thank you ANET for fixing the drakes! it’s a good start!), there’s a few problems with the interface and how cooldowns work, but balancing a class is work best done in slow, incremental steps. The reason is because there’s so many variables in how combat can play out that a single, seemingly innocent change could result in something being massively broken or massively OP. ANET is simply being cautious because ranger is, right now, for all intents and purposes, close to being balanced.

Also, I really, honestly, don’t want perm-stow because it’s an extra click. When I run through a zone, I have my pet on avoid combat and am constantly sending the pet to and calling back from targets. Honestly, I don’t have a problem. It takes practice, that’s all. You’re not going to master it in a day (which is why I think some people really get mad when they can’t do basic things like kite through a mob).

For example, I can see someone new at ranger (say level 40) who is in AC and lets his or her pet roam a bit and drag in an unwanted mob. The PUGs boot said person or else ridicule them and that person thinks “well, it can’t be my fault…it’s this stupid pet ANET doesn’t know how to program”. Look, we’ve all been there. Managing the pet was something I wouldn’t have considered myself to have mastered until after I hit level 80.