Guild Wars 2

It used to be when your pet died, it got a little “rez me” icon above its head. This was obviously annoying, and rarely told where is was in a general melee anyways, and it’s gone now, so that’s good. But now I have NO idea whether my pet’s dead or not, especially in a big pitched battle. They usually stay at high health and then plummet to zero really fast, so I can miss when they actually die and then not notice that they’re dead.

I have a solution though! Put a big red “X” over their picture on the toolbar. Simple. Then I know, this pet’s dead, swap him out. Anything else like that would be fine, a bit UI feature on the toolbar of some kind to indicate a dead pet.

Is the empty pet health bar an insufficient indicator?

applied disbelief.8763:

Is the empty pet health bar an insufficient indicator?

But then it slowly heals itself back up so that can be incredibly confusing cos they’re in their own “downed” state until we res them and get their normal HP bar back..

I agree with this one… I’m always asking myself, “Is my pet dead?? Where’d he go? What’s going on? …swap there…problem fixed for a few seconds.”

But then it slowly heals itself back up so that can be incredibly confusing cos they’re in their own “downed” state until we res them and get their normal HP bar back..

Exactly. If you don’t notice the split second that they die, their HP will be something above zero (keep in mind that my build includes so far 10 points in the Pet line, with the Regen signet), it usually fluctuates between 5-25%, because they tend to stay enough in harms way that they keep taking damage, and yet can’t attack or use their special effects so they’re useless.

Check out the pet’s F2 skill. If it’s grey, they’re down. If it’s colorful, they’re up.

I always found that the only information I need to know came from my character shouting stuff like “Not my pet!” or “They got my pet!” or “My pet has been hurt!”.

but that is just me though.

I agree with Artbeard… my character will shout out something about the pet’s death. I guess if you are listening to something else instead of the game while you play, you could miss this. Another clue would be the fact that your pet stops attacking and limps back to you.

“I’ll revive you” is another
I usually know because my pet is standing beside me and not shooting lightning. Mind you the mob is usually dead before he even starts using his F2 ability, that silly billy. They must have decided to make a 20 second thought process followed by a 5 second cast to limit the river drake’s op cannon of death.

Back on topic, I’m only usually unaware of my pets death is big groups because I normally look at its HP and F2 ability and if its standing near me.

I do sometime hear the audio cue, sometimes not. The “helpful suggestions” you guys give are perfectly fine for solo play, but my pet never dies in solo anyways. In a general melee, with dozens of characters involved, it’s far too subtle to notice my pet “slinking back” or its HP bottoming out for a split second, or my character saying something (amongst numerous sound effects). This needs to be very simple, a big flashing red light in your face that tells you the pet is dead dead dead, do something about it. Subtlety has no place here.

Dead pet should just dissapear from screen and our pet bar until they are fully healed, and we should see a message in midscreen “XXX, your loyal companion, has died”. Its not like we can Rezz them like we used to, so theres no need for them to stay near us doing nothing.

Is it attacking?

If no
It’s either dead/passive/bugged

Is it not on passive?
Its either dead/bugged

Click F1
Did it attack?

If no then its dead

Detuctive reasoning

Sneakier.9460:

Is it attacking?

If no
It’s either dead/passive/bugged

Is it not on passive?
Its either dead/bugged

Click F1
Did it attack?

If no then its dead

Detuctive reasoning

That doesnt really work in a WvW situation, because you cant really tell your own pet from the others and sometimes you dont see him at all. And sometimes you pet wont attack even if he is alive (bug), your pet will be renamed as a juvenile something (bug). and sometimes he wont use his special ability (bug).

So, Its better to have a clear indication wheter our pet is either alive or dead instead of “deducting” wheter he is bugged/dead or chasing rabbits.

Also when in WvW I’m always on TS3 do my game audio is always off, lest I miss what my guildies are saying >.<

To Op if you are in a dungeon, yep he’s deff dead.

Ohoni.6057:

I do sometime hear the audio cue, sometimes not. The “helpful suggestions” you guys give are perfectly fine for solo play, but my pet never dies in solo anyways. In a general melee, with dozens of characters involved, it’s far too subtle to notice my pet “slinking back” or its HP bottoming out for a split second, or my character saying something (amongst numerous sound effects). This needs to be very simple, a big flashing red light in your face that tells you the pet is dead dead dead, do something about it. Subtlety has no place here.

Pretty much sums up what I was going to say, there is sometimes far too much going on to notice whether or not your pet is alive, while I rarely have problems with this as I tend to always watch my pet it does happen, the pet dies and you won’t notice when you are trying to kite from 3 veterans smacking you about the place.

There are a couple of UI indicators that your pet is dead:

-Special skill is grayed out (not too noticeable)
-Health bar is darkened (and not going down, relatively noticeable)

These along with the other signs:

-They aren’t attacking (duh)
-Pressing the skill button does nothing
-Your character almost always says something when they die

Means it’s not all that hard to tell. I agree though a stronger indicator would be a simple and effective improvement.

I probably pay way too much attention to what my pet is doing though. Some people in dungeons have even argued with me to leave them passive, even though it’s as simple as hitting F3 if you want them to not go ahead. I suppose it also helps that I have these commands easily accessible on my mouse so that I can use them while moving and doing other things.