First i will make this post not centered in balance but in design and rewards to the player. In terms of connection with the pet, our skills and traits lack from it, only a few skills are additions to the player from the pet, where his behavior actually helps the player (Like Rampage as One, where attacks grant you might) .
My main experience is in dungeon and wvwvw, so don’t expect pvp comments.
The first thing I have to mention is about my evolution as a ranger:
- In early lvls i noticed my pet was doing most of my damage and using my traits on beast master was extremely more efficient than any other, the pet was pretty much doing everything for me. So the only thing I was doing was supporting my pet (using sick ‘em, signet of stone, signet of the wild and horn).
- When I first went to a dungeon with some friends (we were finally 5 above lvl 30) we went to ascalonian, I was around lvl 40, and still my pet did all the job, and when both my pets were dead i had to wait 1 full minute to revive him, when a pet its pretty much 70% (if not more) of your damage, how i’m supposed to play if he is dead? i dont even have a chance to revive him like it was a player, that would be useful, maybe a trait that lets me revive him faster, or so I thought, after some more advanced dungeons there was no way to let him live long enough to deal a good amount of damage because i didn’t have any control of him in movement or position.
- Now i’m at wvw and my only use of pet is when i use guard on walls to hit players defending, and that’s pretty much my pet.
After some thinking there are some flaws there:
- Early game I just supported the pet because he did more damage, I never had control of it. As a player i had little reward to my character, it pretty much was as a powerful NPC did all the work and took me to end game. In every point of pve i never felt like i was “microing” my pet, our only commands are:
- “attack”: it does it automatically so it doesn’t really count, it doesn’t even let me call that my pet attacks something specific, it just attack the same target as me.
- “F2 attack”: pretty much lackluster (compared to autoattack, mainly because of unresponsive to click) in every pet but jaguar.
- “Come to me”: I know everyone uses it just to avoid aggro without changing its state to avoid enemy. Its not enough to evade AoE+
Where is even my ability to move him somewhere to my taste?, Guard pretty much cover it to some extent but how is that a “microing” character depends on wasting a utility to have even a remotely control of my pet who it pretty much all my damage.
- I didn’t felt reward to my character from my pet, to me this is a HUGE flaw, how is that everything that i do with my pet falls into 2 categories: I buff my pet or I use my pet as a meatshield/slave.
Just look at our utilities: Guard, Sick ‘em and untraited signets are pretty much just for the pet. Protect me and search and rescue, are a meatshield and a revive slave. Whats left? Spirits who aren’t worth taking, survival where the only skill that interacts with the pet is QZ, and traps that have nothing to do with pet.
At Elites the is light in Rampage as One its the only skill that i feel in touch with the pet, that i want him to be alive for me, both of us get the buff and we gain might from each other attacks, That’s a great skill, every of our skills should do something like that.
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