Guild Wars 2

I’ve never liked how ranger pets work. They require micromanagement and a lot of the times their skills fail to activate.

How about an optional trait that turns whatever pet you have currently slotted into a large ongoing stat buff similar to food buff in exchange for not having the pet out there depending on the pet being slotted? And rather than the pet doing the F1/F2 skill that ability will come from the active player instead?

This could be a wereform or combine trait that allows the player to take on the aspect of the pet slotted. (Of course no graphical difference, only difference will be the buff)

I think this would encourage a lot of diverse builds centered around specific pets and be fairly easy for the devs to implement and test.

This sounds like a good idea but it should not be implemented because it is actually terrible. Speaking from experience I played a warlock in World of Warcraft from vanilla to panda land and everyone complained about pet AI. So what did they do? Made a talent that sacrificed your pet for a buff. Guess what? Every person in the entire game picked this talent so they nerfed it to hell and I think it is going to be removed. It was a fiasco for the entire pandaria expansion pack.

A band-aid solution like this doesn’t solve some of the core problems with the ranger profession. So while this sounds good on paper I guarantee it would be detrimental to the class in the long run. And anyways rangers without pets are basically just warriors with less survivability. I love rangers in this game and honestly it’s the only profession I ever want to play despite having to micromanage the pet, the bugs, etc.

gpassucc.5961:

This sounds like a good idea but it should not be implemented because it is actually terrible. Speaking from experience I played a warlock in World of Warcraft from vanilla to panda land and everyone complained about pet AI. So what did they do? Made a talent that sacrificed your pet for a buff. Guess what? Every person in the entire game picked this talent so they nerfed it to hell and I think it is going to be removed. It was a fiasco for the entire pandaria expansion pack.

A band-aid solution like this doesn’t solve some of the core problems with the ranger profession. So while this sounds good on paper I guarantee it would be detrimental to the class in the long run. And anyways rangers without pets are basically just warriors with less survivability. I love rangers in this game and honestly it’s the only profession I ever want to play despite having to micromanage the pet, the bugs, etc.

I am unfamiliar with WoW since I’ve never played it but sounds to me like the ranger pets were terrible there too.

I don’t think this is a band aid solution since the idea is that it’s optional. While a lot of people would probably take it over the pets that just shows how broken the pets are right now.

Also, I believe the differing stat bonus buffs based on the pet type would encourage for more diverse builds, even if 90%+ of the players spec towards no pets within this set of people would still have a lot more diverse builds due to the stats of the buff and the pet ability in question. This is unlike now, where pets are mostly an afterthought for 90%+ of the builds.

Honestly, the pet in most situations is more of a hindrance than help and the only thing that makes them remotely useful is maybe search and rescue shout in wvw.

Also, if the rangers can manage is approach the effectiveness of a warrior with less survivability as you state, then that’s sadly still better than where it is at now.

I guess what I was trying to say is that pets are so bad right now that if this was implemented ALL rangers would (probably) pick the no-pet option. Considering pets are our “thing” that really doesn’t seem like a solid solution. I like my pet on my ranger, I like being a ranger, NOT a warrior with traps. Pets can and should be useful if they would only actually put in the AI to make them so. Every time in pvp I hit F2 and the skill just goes on cooldown without being used I want to curb stomp my kitten.

p.s. hunter pet AI was much better than warlock pet AI. Also Beast Mastery was the highest parsing dps spec for hunters in pvp and pve. Even Demonology (the pet focused Warlock spec) chose the sacrifice option instead for optimal dps.